Category: Critical Thinking

 

The tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons has long been a part of America’s culture war. During the early days of the Satanic Panic, it was claimed that D&D was a tool to lead people to Satanism. The playbook for demonizing games and media was also developed in this time, when it was claimed that James Egbert III’s suicide was caused by D&D. Egbert’s death led to an early acting role for Tom Hanks in Mazes & Monsters.  Lee Pulling’s suicide was also blamed on D&D, leading his mother to start a media campaign against the game. After the Satanic Panic ended, it was briefly all quiet on the D&D front. But in recent years the war has gotten hot.

As would be expected, D&D has been dragged into the “woke” and DEI culture war. Most of the attacks have been directed against changes made by the owners of D&D, Wizards of the Coast. The company has attempted to address some concerns about racism in the game, doing such things as revising some content. For example, some people expressed outrage at the idea that orcs and drow were not inherently evil in the official game lore. Some people have also claimed to be very angry about third party content, claiming that it is too “woke.” For example, when some players created wheelchair rules for the game, a few people expressed outrage at this “wokeness.” Most recently, Elon Musk helped manufacture outrage over the false claim that Gary Gygax, the co-creator of D&D, was being attacked and erased. A quick look at the 2024 Player’s Handbook exposes this lie. My goal here is not to refight these culture war battles but to, as a gamer and a philosophy professor, offer my fellow gamers a useful shield against efforts to manipulate them.

It must be noted that not all criticisms of D&D are part of the culture war; gamers can obviously disagree about rule and lore changes and do so in good faith. A good faith criticism of the game is one that is made honestly because the person sincerely believes there is a problem with the game. But good faith criticisms can obviously be in error or even evil. A person can be sincerely wrong or even sincerely evil. But we are most likely to encounter bad faith attacks e. These bad faith attacks can be divided into three types, although this list is not exhaustive.

The first form of bad faith attack is trolling. What defines a troll is their intent: they want to make people upset and angry. As always, one should not feed the trolls. Trolls can, intentionally or not, serve as allies or stooges for the other bad faith actors.

There are also people who are engaged in fighting the culture war and for them D&D is just a tiny battlefield in their  broader political game. Their goal is not to make D&D better; their aim is to gain political advantages for their side. One goal is to divide gamers against each other in the hopes of destroying any broad sense of community. This is part of the broader and ancient tactic of ruling by dividing: if the ruled and exploited are wasting their energy fighting each other in manufactured fights, they are not expending that energy to address real oppression and exploitation. This approach is also a method of onboarding people to radicalize them. For example, someone might be drawn in because they are mad about the artwork portraying orcs in the new Player’s Handbook and find themselves on a path that ends in white nationalism.

The third type of bad faith actor is the grifter. Like the political agents, they also aim to divide the community with manufactured conflicts. This is because such divisions lead to controversy, controversy generates attention, and attention generates money. Somewhat ironically, the grifters can also benefit their “opponents” by giving them content to, for example, criticize in their own YouTube videos.

The grifters also know that their approach is a good sorting method for other grifts; they are finding the vulnerabilities of their targets and can use these to, for example, lead people into broader political grifts and onboard them to radicalize them, thus enabling even more grifting. So, what can you do if you encounter what might be a bad faith actor on, for example, social media?

The easiest approach is to just ignore them. Even if they are acting in good faith, ignoring them almost certainly will not be a loss. If they are acting in bad faith and are good at being bad, they will break out fallacies (such as making a straw person of your response) and rhetoric to exploit any response you make to feed the controversy. As a practical matter, your time is probably better spent creating D&D stuff or playing the game instead of feeding the trolls, political agents, and grifters. But if you are unsure and do want to engage, I suggest the following approach.

You can try rational engagement and ask these questions: Is the person offering good reasons rather than engaging in fallacies and rhetoric? Are they willing to adjust their views in the face of good reasons? Are they willing to listen to what you are saying? Are they being reciprocal in terms of respect? If the answer to these questions is “no”, then the rational response is to not engage further. Do not feed the troll, do not help the recruiter, do not aid the grifter.

What if you have a friend who is being drawn into the culture war by trolls, political agents, or grifters? What can you do? This can be a tough situation, and groups have lost once good players to the culture war. Attempting to directly engage or criticize people about such views usually causes them to double down. In attempting to change their minds you will push them away and reinforce their views. This will serve to isolate them even more, making them better victims for the political agents and grifters.

A more effective tactic is to approach “at an angle” with kind, rather than critical, engagement. For example, if someone at your table seems to be getting mad about the new species rules but they love character customization, then present the new rules as allowing even more customization. Getting into a fight about whether it is “woke” to have flexible stats will be counterproductive. But there can be cases where it is best to cut them loose; the point of D&D is to have fun and if someone is making the game awful by turning the table into a culture war battlefield, everyone might be happier if they find a more suitable table.

In closing, I want to point out an obvious way to respond to efforts to escalate the culture war. When I run into people who are mad about some change to orcs or enraged about wheelchairs in the game, I politely point out what I call Rule Alpha and Rule Omega. Rule Alpha is that as a DM you are free to run your game as you wish and as a player you are free to play as you wish. This is because no one, including Wizards of the Coast can force you to do otherwise. But choices have consequences, and no one is required to play in your game or allow you at the table.  So, if something in the game makes you angry or you do not like it, then do not have it in your game. Rule Omega is that everyone else has the right to run their games and play as they wish; you do not have the right to force them to play your way. You have the right to express your views, but this can also have consequences.

I don’t think we have anything positive to gain from these manufactured culture war fights. As noted earlier, they just divide the gaming community, cause needless conflict, feed into the broader culture war and enable grifting. If you do not like something about the game but other people do, the rational approach is to not have it in your game and not get mad if other people have it in their games.

 

When the survivors of the Parkland school shooting started speaking against gun violence, conspiracy theorists launched the theory that they were crisis actors. In this context, a crisis actor is someone who pretends to be a victim and does so in service to some secret power. The crisis actor is, by their appeals to pity, supposed to help advance the secret agenda of their secret masters, such as destroying the Second Amendment and taking away peoples’ guns.

As with the false flags discussed in the previous essay, the claim that there are crisis actors presents an epistemic problem: how does one know if the person is a real survivor or an actor serving a secret force? There is also the possibility that a person is a real survivor yet has been recruited to serve the agenda of the secret force.

When sorting out the matter of crisis actors, the same methodology used to address false flags should be applied: when writing about miracles, Hume contends that the certainty one places on the truth of any matter of fact should be proportional to the strength of the evidence. As such, the key question is where the weight of the evidence lies: for or against crisis actors. Naturally, each case needs to be considered on its own, but a general assessment is possible.

When it is alleged that someone is a crisis actor, the usual evidence offered is photographic: the alleged crisis actor has allegedly appeared at the scene of multiple crises. As a method, this is certainly credible: if it can be shown that the same people keep appearing at different events, then it would be reasonable to be suspicious.

However, the first step is to establish that the people are, in fact, the same people. Conspiracy theorists will usually find images that seem to support their claim: what appear to be photos of the same person at different events. However, the photos tend to be low-quality pictures of people with faces distorted by emotion and who have similar hairstyles. Obviously, people in the images can look alike without being the same person. There is also the fact that resemblances between people are not uncommon, especially when the images are of people in the same age range. Snopes has done an analysis of one such case, nicely debunking the claim that the same woman is in all the photos.

In the case of the Parkland students, it was claimed that David Hogg was a crisis actor because he appeared on the news in California. The conspiracy theory is that Hogg was pretending to be a high school student in California and is now pretending to be a Florida high school student. The problem with this narrative is that a person can, obviously enough, travel and be filmed or photographed in different places. Hogg really was in California, but not pretending to be a student. Photos can be found of many people that were taken in far apart locations, but this does not prove they are pretenders,

While investigating individual claims is important, it is also possible to make a general assessment of the likelihood of crisis actors existing. To use the example of David Hogg, he would have needed to establish a fake identity at Parkland. This would require that the other students, the teachers, the people in the community who allegedly knew him, and so on would all need to be active participants in the conspiracy. After all, if he was an actor, his cover would easily be pierced by simply asking people in Parkland about him unless they were also in on the conspiracy. Applying Hume’s principle, the issue is whether it is more likely that Hogg is a real student who survived a real shooting or that he is an actor, and the town is in on the conspiracy. The simpler and more plausible explanation is, obviously enough, that David Hogg was a real student. The same sort of reasoning can be applied to other cases involving alleged crisis actors.

People try to make sense of events by weaving narratives matching their world views. One awful example of this is when people claim school shootings are false flag attacks. In this context, a false flag attack is when the attack is claimed to have been conducted by a mysterious force (like the deep state) to advance some political goal (such as taking away guns). In some cases, the false flag is alleged to be entirely false: there was no attack. In other cases, it is claimed there was a real attack, but attackers were acting at the behest (wittingly or not) of this mysterious force.

From a philosophical perspective, these alleged false flags present an epistemic problem: how does one know an attack is a false flag? As would be suspected, those advancing false flag narratives are often short on evidence. While a complete investigation would require considering each case, David Hume offers a useful guiding principle. When writing about miracles, Hume contends that the certainty one places on the truth of any matter of fact should be proportional to the strength of the evidence. I will apply this principle to the falsest of false flags first, the fictional attack.

Some conspiracy theorists, such as Alex Jones and James Tracy, infamously claimed that no one was killed at Sandy Hook.  Despite the repeated debunking of this claim, conspiracy theorists usually double down in the face of efforts to disprove their claims. That said, it is worth considering the false flag claim in the light of Hume’s principle as well as using the standard inference to the best explanation.

Faking a school shooting would involve many people. The fake parents, fake students, fake police, fake teachers, and others would need to be in on the conspiracy and would need to maintain the façade in the face of years of investigation. School records, police records and such would also need to be faked. There would need to be fake funerals with fake bodies. And so on for a conspiracy that would involve hundreds of people. Given what we know about the ability of people to keep secrets, it is wildly implausible that such a conspiracy could occur and occur repeatedly, as the false flag conspiracy theorists allege.

While it could be countered that the secret force behind the conspiracy has the power and funding to engage in such massive fakery and maintain the fiction for years, this simply creates another problem: if this secret force is so powerful, so capable and so disciplined, then it should be able to easily achieve its political goals. If the conspiracy theory about school shootings being faked to justify banning guns were true, then guns should have already be banned. The theory, in a way, disproves itself.

That is the trouble with proposing such a force. It would have no need to remain a dark conspiracy when it could simply impose its will. The best explanation is that the shootings are not complete fiction. This, however, does leave open the possibility of a false flag that is not a complete fabrication.

Other school shooting conspiracy theorists advance the idea that some or all school shootings are real shootings, but the shooter is acting at the behest of the secret force that makes such things happen. In this case, only the shooter needs to be involved in the conspiracy—either willingly or by being manipulated. There is also the option that the real shooter is an agent of the secret force and then a patsy is put in their place, perhaps as a corpse.

Those arranging the attacks are supposed to be acting as architects of fear who hope to scare the public into backing attempts to destroy the Second Amendment and take away guns. On these theories, the conspirators might be liberals who hate guns so much that they are willing to murder children. Or they might be someone else. The theories vary.

As before, the way to assess this claim is to consider the evidence. An obvious problem is that conspiracy theorists will claim that evidence against their view is the work of Them and they will cherry pick their evidence to confirm their theory. But a more objective assessment indicates the conspiracy theory is less plausible than the alternative. After all, the conspiracy theory requires a secret force that can operate in an amazingly effective manner yet is somehow unable to achieve its alleged ends. It is both extremely capable and extremely ineffective, which is an odd combination. If this secret force is alleged to have control of the state, then it should be able to achieve its goals. If it is not in control of the state, then there is the obvious question of why the state remains ignorant of its operations or ignores them. Once again, the best explanation is that the alleged false flag operations are simply what they appear to be; awful murders.

 

While public employees are usually not required to join unions, they are often required to help cover the cost of collective bargaining. While the legal issue will be settled by money and judges, there is the moral issue of whether public employees should be compelled to pay these fees. As a disclosure, I belong to a teachers’ union and this should be considered a potentially biasing factor.

One argument against such compulsion can be built on an appeal to the right of free speech. As has also been argued in the courts, money is speech and a moral case can be made that forcing employees to pay union fees is compelled speech. This is because unions, like corporations, use their financial resources to influence politicians and voters. A person who does not agree with the views expressed by the union is thus forced to “speak” on behalf of these views by paying fees. Being an advocate of free speech and opposed to compelled speech, I do find this argument appealing. However, it has some flaws.

One concern is whether money is speech. While the courts have, so far, drawn a line at outright and explicit bribery, the logical conclusion of this notion is that if money is speech, then giving a politician money is the same as trying to persuade them via other means. While it would be a slippery slope fallacy to insist this view must lead inevitably to the legalization of bribery, proponents of the view have pushed through other barriers and the sea of money is eroding this last wall. It is reasonable to worry that what is now seen as bribery will become legitimate persuasion. It can be argued that the bribery line can be drawn and held by claiming crossing it would be harmful. But as many lines have already been crossed it is reasonable to worry that this barrier will fall as easily as the others. So, I disagree with the idea that money is speech and that spenders should enjoy so much freedom to use their money to influence politicians.

A second concern is this logic should apply to corporations. If it is morally wrong for employees to be forced to support a union whose views and activities they disagree with, then it is morally wrong for an employer to force employees to support an employer whose views and activities they disagree with. For example, an employee at Hobby Lobby might not embrace the religious views and political activities of that company. While employees are not (yet) required to directly pay for their company’s lobbying efforts, the money generated by their labor obviously goes to these activities. Just as an employee would make less income by being forced to pay fees to a union, an employee makes less income by being forced to receive less pay so that the employer can pay for their lobbying and political activity. Naturally, this would only apply to employers that used business funds to engage in such activities. If employees are engaging in compelled speech by being forced to pay fees to unions, then employees are also engaged in compelled speech by having the money they generate being used to fund lobbying and political activities rather than getting that money in their paychecks. As such, if employees cannot be compelled to pay union dues on free speech grounds, then employees have the same right to demand that their money not be spent by their employer on activities they disagree with. That money should be in their paycheck. Unfortunately, logic has no power in the law and employers would never permit the politicians they bought (with workers’ money) to implement this.

The way to respond to this argument is to argue there is a relevant difference between employers and unions. For example, it could be argued that people chose to work for companies and thus express a tacit agreement with their activities since they can get another job elsewhere. The easy and obvious reply is that the same applies to people seeking employment where they must contribute fees to unions. If they do not agree, they can get a job elsewhere.

It could also be argued that employers have special rights to compel speech that unions lack; the challenge would be to make such a case in a principled way. Merely liking employers and loathing unions would not be a principled justification.

Considering the above discussion, if employees have a free speech right to not pay union dues, then they have the free speech right to refuse to allow their employer to use the money they generate for political activities they disagree with. As such, if employees can get the benefits of the union without paying the fees, then employees should have the choice of contributing some of their pay to the political activities of their employer or getting that sum in their paycheck. As the employers own all of the Republicans and most of the Democrats, this will never happen.

Following their “good guy with a gun” mantra, Republicans often respond to school shootings with proposals to arm teachers. While there is some public support for these proposals, most Americans are not enamored of the idea. Teachers, with some exceptions, tend to oppose these proposals. As a necessary disclaimer, I’ve been shooting since I could hold a gun and shoot it safely.

While people line up on this issue based on their ideology, it should be given an objective evaluation in terms of practicality and morality.

From a practical standpoint, the question is whether arming teachers would make students safer. Under this broad consideration are other practical concerns. For example, an obvious concern is whether an average teacher would be able to engage and defeat a shooter with a reasonable chance of success and survival. School shooters tend to be inexperienced and untrained and a teacher with some training would probably be as skilled as the typical shooter. But school shooters tend to use assault rifles, and this gives them a firepower advantage in terms of range, accuracy, damage and magazine size. This assumes that teachers would be armed with pistols. But some would argue, a pistol is still better than being unarmed.

So, an armed teacher would be objectively better than an unarmed teacher when engaging a shooter. But the engagement would not be like a shootout in a Western, with gunslingers facing each other in an empty street. The engagement would probably take place with students in the area, making it possible that a teacher will miss the shooter and hit students. Even trained professionals often miss pistol shots in an active engagement and a teacher with just basic firearm training will miss more often. This leads to the practical and moral question of whether this engagement would make students safer than not arming teachers. The practical matter is an empirical question: would an armed teacher reduce casualties by either taking out the shooter or keeping their attention and allowing more people to escape? Or would they do more harm by wounding and killing students with missed shots? If teachers are armed, we will be able to collect data on this.

The moral concern is best put in utilitarian terms: if there is a reduction in deaths due to armed teacher intervention, would this outweigh unintended injuries and deaths caused by the teacher? On the face of it, a utilitarian calculation would find the action morally good, provided that the teacher’s actions saved more students than if they had not been armed. However, there is the moral concern about the possibility of teachers unintentionally killing or wounding students. But engaging a shooter would seem to be the right thing to do, even if there are unintentional casualties.

If concerns were limited to the engagement, then this matter would be settled. However, there are obvious worries about what harms might arise from having armed teachers in schools. Their guns will not magically appear in their hands when needed, nor can the guns be safely locked away for use only during an attack. The teachers would need to be carrying their guns all the time. This leads to a host of practical and moral problems.

One problem is accidental discharge. While not common, people do accidentally fire concealed weapons while, for example, digging in their purse for their phone. The risk of accidental death and injury needs to be weighed against the effectiveness of armed teachers. Since each gun is a risk every minute it is present, it is not unreasonable to think that the risk of having armed teachers outweighs the risk of not having armed teachers to respond to a shooter.

Another concern is someone taking a teacher’s gun, such as a student grabbing a gun when a teacher is trying to break up a fight. 23% of shootings in hospitals  involve guns taken from security officers; the same problem would apply to schools. This must also be factored in when assessing the moral and practical aspects of the matter. It would be ironic and awful if a school shooter used a gun taken from a teacher.

There is also the worry an armed teacher will be mistaken for a shooter when the police arrive. In the confusion of an engagement, the police will need to instantly distinguish the good guys with guns from the bad guys with guns. Armed teachers run the risk of being shot by the police or other armed teachers who see the gun but do not recognize their colleague in the heat of the crisis.

One concern that some will see as controversial is the worry that arming teachers will put black and Latino students at greater risk. Because black and Latino students already tend to be treated worse than white students, they will be at greater risk of being shot by teachers. This concern is often coupled with worries about stand-your-ground laws that allow people to use deadly force when they feel threatened. This concern does extend to white students as well; an armed teacher might feel threatened by a white student and pull their gun. It would be terrible and ironic if armed teachers ended up killing students rather than protecting them. While most teachers, like most people, are not inclined towards murder, the possibility of students being wounded or killed by armed teachers must be considered.

Assessing the morality and practicality of arming teachers requires weighing the risks of arming teachers against the benefits of doing so. Based on the above discussion, one advantage of arming teachers is that they will have a somewhat better chance of stopping or slowing down a shooter. Weighed against this are the many disadvantages noted above—disadvantages that include the possibility of teachers and students being wounded or killed by armed teachers.

One rational, but cold, way to approach this matter is to weigh the odds of a school shooting against the odds of people being harmed by arming teachers. While exact calculations of odds are problematic, the odds of a shooting incident in any K-12 school in a year in the United States has been estimated as 1 in 53,925. For high schools, it is 1 in 21,000. For elementary schools, 1 in 141,463. While these calculations can be questioned, school shootings are statistically rare given the number of schools and numbers of students. This does not diminish the awfulness of shootings. But, when coldly weighing the risks of arming teachers, it is critical. This is because arming teachers would be a good idea (practically and morally) if the benefits outweighed the harms. Determining this requires estimating the odds of a shooting, the odds an armed teacher will stop it and the odds of the various harms of arming teachers occurring. If a reasonable calculation shows that arming teachers would create more good than bad, then arming teachers would be a good idea. If not, it would be a bad idea. Perhaps this cold calculation might be countered by an emotional appeal, such as “if only one student is saved by an armed teacher, it would be worth it.” To this, there are two replies. One is that good policy is not determined by emotional appeals but by rational assessment of the facts. The second is an emotional appeal: “would it still be worth it if one student died because of armed teachers? Or two? Or ten?” My view is that arming teachers, given the odds, is a bad idea. However, I am open to evidence and arguments in favor of arming teachers.

Mass shootings occur with such frequency that there is a well-established script for everyone.  The media focuses on the weapon used, the right offers “thoughts and prayers” and says now is not the time to talk about gun violence, and the left calls for more gun control. Attention will then fade; children will be buried and nothing significant will be done. This cycle will repeat with the next mass shooting. And the next. As a country, we are getting it wrong in many ways.

One way we get it wrong, which is a fault of the media and “the left”, is to obsess on the weapon used in the shooting. This weapon is often an AR-15. The media script often involves asking why it is used in shootings. The easy and obvious answer is that it shows up at mass shootings for the same reason that McDonald bags end up on the roadside: both are very popular. The AR-15 is a “good” weapon for mass shootings because it has a large magazine capacity and is both lethal and easy to shoot. But the AR-15 is not unique. There are similar assault rifles (as they are called). For example, the AK-47 and its clones are effective weapons of this type; but they are less popular in America. Other guns are just as lethal (or more so) than the assault rifles, but they usually have smaller magazines. For example, a hunting rifle might hold only 5 rounds. This shows one of the problems with the obsession with the AR-15, that there are other weapons that can do the same.

Another problem with obsessing about the specific weapon is that it enables an easy red herring response to calls for gun control. A red herring is a rhetorical device used to divert attention from the original issue to another issue. When, for example, a reporter starts pressing a congressman about the AR-15, they can easily switch the discussion from gun violence to a discussion about the AR-15, thus getting away from the real issue. A solution is to resist focusing on one weapon and focus instead on the issue of gun violence. Which leads to another way we get it wrong.

School shootings are horrific, but they are not the way most victims of gun violence die. Homicides are currently at relatively low levels (for the United States). Most gun-related deaths are suicides, and assault rifles are not the most used weapon in gun deaths. School shootings and mass shootings get the attention of the media and the nation, but this has seemed to enable us to ignore the steady flow of gun-related deaths that do not make headlines. This is not to deny mass shooting are serious problem. But the gun violence problem in America goes beyond mass shootings. It is, ironically, a quiet problem that does not get the spotlight of the media like a mass shooting does. As such, even less is done about the broader problem than is done about mass shootings. And little or nothing is done about mass shootings.

While there are gun control proposals from “the left”, the right advocates having a “good guy with a gun” approach, blames mental illness, and propose fortifying schools. There seems to be little evidence that the “good guy with a gun” will solve the problem of mass shootings; but this is because there is so little good data about gun violence. While mental illness is clearly a problem and seriously addressing mental illness would be a social good, it seems unlikely that the vague proposals offered would do anything even if they were acted upon. America essentially abandoned the mentally ill during the Reagan era, an approach that has persisted to this day. The right is not serious about putting in the social services needed to address mental illness; they bring it up in response to mass shootings to distract people from gun control. The left, while expressing concern, also has done little to address this challenge or health care in general. Also, people with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims than perpetrators, so addressing mental health in a way that focuses on mass shooters would not address the broader problem.

The proposals to create “Fortress Academia” might seem appealing, but there is the obvious problem with cost: public schools are often chronically underfunded, and it is not clear where the money needed for such fortifications would come from. Turning schools into fortresses seems fundamentally wrong and is, perhaps, a red herring to distract people from the actual causes of the problem. To use an analogy, it is like addressing the opioid epidemic by telling people to get better home security to prevent addicts from breaking in to steal things to sell to buy drugs. This is not to say that school safety is a bad idea, just that turning our schools into forts does not seem to be the best approach.

I know that it will not be that long before I am writing about mass shootings and gun violence again as the malign neglect of the problem persists as does the neglect of so many of America’s ills.

 

By J R – https://www.flickr.com/photos/jmrosenfeld/3639249316, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37298033

Some of the surplus of military equipment leftover from America’s foreign adventures were given to American police forces. While this might have seemed to be a good idea at the time, it did lead to infamous images of war ready police squaring off against unarmed civilians. This is the sort of image one would expect in a dictatorship but are not supposed to see in a democracy.

This images helped start a debate about the appropriateness of police equipment, methods and operations. The Obama regime responded by putting some restrictions on the military hardware that could be transferred to the police, although many of the restrictions were on gear that the police had, in general, never requested. In his first term, Trump decided to lift the Obama ban and  then attorney general Jeff Sessions touted this as a rational response to crime and social ills. As Sessions sees it, “(W)e are fighting a multi-front battle: an increase in violent crime, a rise in vicious gangs, an opioid epidemic, threats from terrorism, combined with a culture in which family and discipline seem to be eroding further and a disturbing disrespect for the rule of law.” Perhaps Sessions believes that arming the police with tanks and grenade launchers will help improve family stability and shore up discipline. With Trump’s promise to forcibly deport millions of migrants, we are likely to see a militarized police forcer operating alongside the actual military.

While it might be tempting to dismiss Trump and Session having engaged in a mix of macho swagger and the view that bigger guns solve social ills, there is a real issue about what is appropriate equipment for the police.

The key factor in determining the appropriate armaments for police is the role that the police are supposed to play in society. In a democratic state aimed at the good of the people (the classic Lockean state) the role of the police is to protect and serve the people. On this view, the police do need armaments suitable to combat domestic threats to life, liberty and property. In general, these threats would usually involve engaging untrained and unarmored civilian opponents equipped with light arms (such as pistols and shotguns). As such, the appropriate weapons for the police would also be light arms and body armor.

Naturally enough, the possibility of unusual circumstances must be kept in mind. Since the United States is awash in guns, the police do face opponents well-armed opponents. The police might have to go up against experienced (or fanatical) opponents, perhaps within a fortified defensive position. They are also sometimes called upon to go up against rioters.  In such cases, the police would justly require riot gear and military grade equipment. However, these should be restricted to specially trained special units, such as SWAT.

It might be objected that the police should be equipped with this sort of equipment, just in case they need it. I certainly see the appeal to this. A rational combat mindset is to be ready for anything and to meet resistance with overwhelming force. But that points to the problem: to the degree the police adopt a combat mindset, they are moving away from being police and towards being soldiers. Given the distinction between the missions, having police operating like soldiers with military equipment is a danger to civil society. Defeating an enemy in war is different from protecting and serving.

There is also the problem that military equipment is more dangerous than standard police weapons. While a pistol can kill, automatic weapons can do much more damage. The police, unlike soldiers, are presumed to be engaging fellow citizens and the objective is supposed to be to use as little force as possible. They are supposed to be policing rather than subjugating.

But the view that the police should serve and protect the good of the people is not the only possible view. As can be seen around the world, some states regard the police as tools of repression and control. These police operate as the military, only with their fellow citizens as enemies. If the police are regarded as tools of the ruling class and exist to maintain their law and order, then a militarized police force makes sense. Militaries serve as an army against the people of other countries, serving the will of their rulers. Same basic role, but different targets.

It could be argued that while this is something practiced by repressive states, it is also suitable for a democratic state. Jeff Sessions characterizes policing as a battle, and one could argue the is right. As Trump likes to say, one might think there are enemies within America that must be defeated in the war on crime. On this view, the police are to engage these enemies in a way analogous to the military engaging a foreign foe and thus it makes sense that they would need military grade equipment. They are a military force serving military objectives. This lines up with the criticism that the police are often an occupying army in poor neighborhoods, but this is regarded as a feature rather than a flaw as that is the function of the police.

While I do think the militarization of the police impacts their behavior (I would be tempted to use a tank if I had one), my main concern is not with what weapons the police have access to, but the attitude and moral philosophy behind how they are armed. That is, my concern is not so much that the police have the weapons of an army, but that they are regarded more as an army to be used against citizens than as protectors of life, liberty and property. As this is being written, the police have been deployed against striking Amazon workers and critics point to this as an example of how the police force serves as domestic army for the rich.

 

Before getting into the discussion, I am not a medical professional and what follows should be met with due criticism and you should consult an expert before embarking on changes to your exercise or nutrition practices. Or you might die. Probably not. But maybe.

As any philosopher will tell you, while the math used in science is deductive (the premises are supposed to guarantee the conclusion with certainty) scientific reasoning is inductive (the premises provide some degree of support for the conclusion that is less than complete). Because of this, science suffers from what philosophers call the problem of induction. In practical terms, this means that no matter how careful the reasoning and no matter how good the evidence, the inference can still be false. The basis is that inductive reasoning involves a “leap” from the premises/evidence (what has been observed) to the conclusion (what has not been observed). Put bluntly, inductive reasoning always has a chance to lead to a false conclusion. But this appears unavoidable as life seems inductive.

Scientists and philosophers have tried to make science entirely deductive. For example, Descartes believed he could find truths that he could not doubt and then use valid deductive reasoning to generate a true conclusion with absolute certainty. Unfortunately, this science of certainty is the science of the future and (probably) always will be. So, we are stuck with induction.

The problem of induction applies to the sciences that study nutrition, exercise and weight loss and the conclusions made in these sciences can always be wrong. This helps explain why recommendations change relentlessly.

While there are philosophers of science who would disagree, science is a matter of trying to figure things out by doing the best we can do at this time. This is limited by the available resources (such as technology) and human epistemic capabilities. As such, whatever science is presenting now is almost certainly at least partially wrong; but the wrongs often get reduced over time. But sometimes they increase. This is true of all the sciences. Consider, for example, the changes in physics since Thales got it started. This also helps explain why recommendations about diet and exercise change often.

While science is sometimes idealized as a field of pure reason outside of social influences, science is also a social activity. Because of this, science is influenced by social factors and human flaws. For example, scientists need money to fund their research and can be vulnerable to corporations looking to “prove” claims that are in their interest. As another example, scientific subjects can become issues of political controversy, such as race, evolution and climate change. This politicization tends to be bad for science and anyone who does not profit from manufacturing controversy. As a final example, scientists can be motivated by pride and ambition to fake or modify their findings. Because of these factors, the sciences dealing with nutrition and exercise are, to a meaningful degree, corrupted and this makes it difficult to make a rational judgment about which claims are true. One excellent example is how the sugar industry paid scientists at Harvard to downplay the health risks presented by sugar and play up those presented by fat. Another illustration is the fact that the food pyramid endorsed by the US government has been shaped by the food industries rather than being based entirely on good science.

Given these problems it might be tempting to abandon mainstream science and go with whatever food or exercise ideology one finds appealing. That would be a bad idea. While science suffers from these problems, mainstream science is better than the nonscientific alternatives. They tend to have all the problems of science without any of its strengths. So, what should one do? The rational approach is to accept the majority opinion of qualified and credible experts. One should also keep in mind the above problems and approach the science with due skepticism.

So, what does the best science of today say about weight loss? First, humans evolved as hunter-gatherers and getting enough calories was a challenge. Humans tend to be very good at storing energy in the form of fat which is one reason the calorie rich environment of modern society contributes to obesity. Crudely put, it is in our nature to overeat because that once meant the difference between life and death.

Second, while exercise does burn calories, it burns far less than many imagine. For most people, most of the calorie burning is a result of the body staying alive. As such, while exercising more could help a person lose weight, the calorie impact of exercise is surprisingly low. That said, you should exercise (if you can) if only for the health benefits.

Third, hunger is a function of the brain, and the brain responds differently to different foods. Foods high in protein and fiber create a feeling of fullness that tends to turn off the hunger signal. Foods with a high glycemic index (like cake) tend to stimulate the brain to cause people to consume more calories. As such, manipulating your brain is an effective way to increase the chance of losing weight. Interestingly, as Aristotle argued, habituation to foods can train the brain to prefer foods that are healthier. You can train yourself to prefer things like nuts, broccoli and oatmeal over cookies, cake, and soda. This takes time and effort but can be done.

Fourth, weight loss has diminishing returns: as one loses weight, one’s metabolism slows, and less energy is needed. As such, losing weight makes it harder to lose weight, which is something to keep in mind.  Naturally, all these claims could be disproven tomorrow, but they seem reasonable now.

 

Central to our American mythology is the belief a person can rise to the pinnacle of success from the depths of poverty. While this does happen, poverty presents an undeniable obstacle to success. Tales within this myth of success present an inconsistent view of poverty:  the hero is praised for overcoming the incredible obstacle of poverty while it is also claimed that anyone with gumption should be able to succeed. The achievement is thus claimed to be heroic yet easy and expected.

Outside of myths, poverty is difficult to overcome. There are the obvious challenges of poverty. For example, a person born into poverty will not have the same educational opportunities as the affluent. As another example, they will have less access to technology such as computers and high-speed internet. As a third example, there are the impacts of diet and health care. These necessities are expensive, and the poor have less access to good food and good care. There is also research by scientists such as Kimberly G. Noble  that suggests a link between poverty and brain development.

While the most direct way to study the impact of poverty and the brain is by imagining the brain, this is expensive. However, research shows a correlation between family income and the size of some surface areas of the cortex. For children whose families make under $50,000 per year, there is a strong correlation between income and the surface area of the cortex. While greater income is correlated with greater cortical surface area, the apparent impact is reduced once the income exceeds $50,000 a year. This suggests, but does not prove, that poverty has a negative impact on the development of the cortex and this impact is proportional to the degree of poverty.

Because of the cost of direct research on the brain, most research focuses on cognitive tests that indirectly test the brain. Children from lower income families perform worse than their more affluent peers in their language skills, memory, self-control and focus. This performance disparity cuts across ethnicity and gender.

As would be expected, there are individuals who do not conform to this general correlation and there are children from disadvantaged families who perform well on the tests and children from advantaged families who do poorly. Knowing the economic class of a child does not automatically reveal what their individual capabilities are. However, there is a correlation in terms of populations rather than individuals. This needs to be remembered when assessing anecdotes of successful rising from poverty. As with all appeals to anecdotal evidence, they do not outweigh statistical evidence.

To use an analogy, boys tend to be stronger than girls but knowing that Sally is a girl does not mean that Sally is certainly weaker than Bob the boy. An anecdote about how Sally is stronger than Bob also does not show that girls are stronger than boys; it just shows that Sally is unusual in her strength. Likewise, if Sally lives in poverty but does exceptionally well on the cognitive tests and has a normal cortex, this does not prove that poverty does not have a negative impact on the brain. This leads to the question as to whether poverty is a causal factor in brain development.

As the saying goes, correlation is not causation. To infer that because there is a correlation between poverty and cognitive abilities then there must be a causal connection would be to fall victim to a causal fallacy. One possibility is that the correlation is a mere coincidence and there is no causal connection. Another possibility is that there is a third factor that is causing both and poverty and the cognitive abilities are both effects.

There is also the possibility that the causal connection has been reversed. That is, it is not poverty that increases the chances a person has less cortical surface (and corresponding capabilities). Rather, it is having less cortical surface area that is a causal factor in poverty.

This view does have some appeal. As noted above, children in poverty tend to do worse on tests for language skills, memory, self-control and focus. These are the capabilities that are useful for success, and people who are less capable will tend to be less successful. Unless, of course, they are simply born into “success.” To use an analogy, there is a correlation between running speed and success in track races. It is not losing races that makes a person slow. It is being slow that causes a person to lose races.

Despite the appeal of this interpretation, to rush to the conclusion that it is cognitive abilities that cause poverty would be as much a fallacy as just rushing to the conclusion that poverty must influence brain development. Both views appear plausible, and it is possible that causation is going in both directions. The challenge is to sort the causation. The obvious approach is to conduct the controlled experiment suggested by Noble: providing an experimental group of low-income families with an income supplement and providing the control group with a relatively tiny supplement. If the experiment is conducted properly and the sample size is large enough, the results would be statistically significant and provide an answer to the question of the causal connection.

Intuitively, it makes sense that an adequate family income would have a positive impact on the development of children. After all, adequate income would allow access to adequate food, care and education. It would also tend to have a positive impact on family conditions, such as emotional stress. This is not to say that just “throwing money at poverty” is a cure all; but reducing poverty is a worthwhile goal regardless of its connection to brain development. If it does turn out that poverty does have a negative impact on development, then those who claim to be concerned with the well-being of children should be motivated to combat poverty. It would also serve to undercut another American myth, that the poor are stuck in poverty simply because they are lazy. If poverty has the damaging impact on the brain it seems to have, then this would help explain why poverty is such a trap.

 

Due to the execution of a health insurance CEO, public attention is focused on health care. The United States has expensive health care, and this is working as intended to generate profits. Many Americans are uninsured or underinsured and even those who have insurance can find that their care is not covered. As has been repeatedly pointed out in the wake of the execution, there is a health care crisis in the United States and it is one that has been intentionally created.

Americans are a creative and generous people, which explains why people have turned to GoFundMe to get money for medical expenses. Medical bills can be ruinous and lead to bankruptcy for hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. A GoFundMe campaign can help a person pay their bills, get the care they need and avoid financial ruin. Friends of mine have been forced to undertake such campaigns and I have donated to them, as have many other people. In my own case, I am lucky and have a job that offers insurance coverage at a price I can afford, and my modest salary allows me to meet the medical expenses for a very healthy person with no pre-existing conditions. However, I know that like most of us,  I am one medical disaster away from financial ruin. As such, I have followed the use of GoFundMe for medical expenses with some practical interest. I have also given it some thought from a philosophical perspective.

On the one hand, the success of certain GoFundMe campaigns to cover such expenses suggests that people are morally decent and are willing to expend their own resources to help others. While GoFundMe does profit from these donations, their take is modest. They are not engaged in gouging people in need and exploiting medical necessities for absurdly high profits. That is the job of the health insurance industry.

On the other hand, there is the moral concern that in a wealthy country replete with billionaires and millionaires, many people must beg for money to meet their medical expenses. This spotlights the excessive cost of healthcare, the relatively low earnings of many Americans, and the weakness of the nation’s safety net. While those who donate out of generosity and compassion merit moral praise, the need for such donations merits moral condemnation. People should not need to beg for money to pay for their medical care. 

To anticipate an objection, I am aware that people do use GoFundMe for frivolous things and there are scammers, but my concern is with the fact that some people do need to turn to crowdfunding to pay their bills.

While donating is morally laudable, there are concerns about this method of funding. One practical problem is that it depends on the generosity of others. It is not a systematic and dependable method of funding. As such, it is a gamble to rely on it.

A second problem is that it depends on running an effective social media campaign. Like any other crowdfunding, success depends on getting attention and persuading people to donate. Those who have the time, resources and skills to run effective social media campaigns (or who have help) are more likely to succeed. This is concerning because people facing serious medical expenses are often in no condition to undertake the challenges of running a social media campaign. This is not to criticize or condemn people who can do this or recruit others. My point is that this method is no substitute for a systematic and consistent approach to funding health care.

A third problem is that success depends on the appeal of the medical condition and the person with that condition. While a rational approach to funding would be based on merit and need, there are clearly conditions and people that are more appealing in terms of attracting donors. For example, certain diseases and conditions can be “in” and generate sympathy, while others are not as appealing. In the case of people, we are not all equal in how appealing we are to others. As with the other problems, I do not condemn or criticize people for having conditions that are “in” or being appealing. Rather, my concern is that this method rests so heavily on these factors rather than medical and financial need. Once again, this serves to illustrate how the current system has been willfully broken and does not serve the needs of most Americans. While those who have succeeded in their GoFundMe campaigns should be lauded for their effort and ingenuity, those who run the health care system in which people have to run social media campaigns to afford their health care should be condemned.