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Conspiracy Theories & Not Reading it Right

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The American right is now largely defined by various debunked conspiracy theories such as the big lie about the 2020 election and, of course, those involving all things COVID. While some conspiracy theories are intentionally manufactured by those who know they are untrue (such as the 2020 election conspiracy theories) it does seem possible that other theories get their start by people simply being bad at reading things correctly. For example, consider the claim that there are microchips in the COVID vaccines because of Bill Gates.

The Verge does a step-by-step analysis of how this conspiracy theory evolved, which is an excellent example of how such conspiracy claims can arise, mutate, and propagate. The simple version is this: in a chat on Reddit, Gates predicted that people would have a digital “passport” of their health records. Some Americans who attended K-12 public schools have already used a paper version of this; my old report card envelope from my elementary school has my relevant health records in it. The idea of tattoos to mark people who had been vaccinated has also been suggested—as a solution to the problem of medical records in places where record keeping is spotty or non-existent.

Bill Gate’s prediction was picked up by a Swedish website focused on biohacking and they put forth the idea of using an implanted chip to store this information. This is not a new idea for biohackers or science fiction, but it was not Gate’s idea. However, the site used the untrue headline, “Bill Gates will use microchip implants to fight coronavirus.” As should surprise no one, this led to my adopted state of Florida.

Pastor Adam Fannin of Jacksonville read the post and uploaded a video to YouTube. The title is “Bill Gates – Microchip Vaccine Implants to fight Coronavirus,” which is an additional untruth on top of the untrue headline from the Swedish site. This idea spread quickly until it reached Roger Stone. The New York Post ran the headline “Roger Stone: Bill Gates may have created coronavirus to microchip people.”

Those familiar with telephone might see this as a dangerous version of that game as each person changes the claim slightly until it has almost no resemblance to the original. Just as with games of telephone, it is worth considering that people intentionally made changes to achieve their desired effect. In the case of a game of telephone, the intent of intentional changes is to make the final version as funny as possible. In the case of conspiracy theories, the goal is to distort the original into the desired straw man—one that will get the most attention and make the target look as bad as possible. In the case of Bill Gates, it started out with the innocuous idea that people would have a digital copy of their health records and ended up with the claim that Bill Gates might have created the virus to put chips in people. In addition to showing how conspiracy claims can devolve from innocuous claims, this also provides an excellent example of how conspiracy theories sometimes do get it right that we should be angry at someone or something but get the reasons why we should be angry wrong.

While there is no good evidence for the conspiracy theories about Gates and microchips, it is true that we should be angry at Bill Gate’s COVID wrongdoings. Specifically, Gates used his foundation to impede access to COVID vaccines. This was not a crazy supervillain plan; it was simply the old method of “monopoly medicine.” As such, you should certainly loath Bill Gates for his immoral actions; but not because of the false conspiracy theories. As an aside, it always strikes me as a bit absurd that when there are so many real problems and real misdeeds to get fired up about, conspiracy theorists spend so much energy generating and propagating imaginary problems and misdeeds. Obviously, these often serve some people very well by distracting attention from these problems. But back to the origin of conspiracy theories.

While, as noted above, people do intentionally make false claims to give birth to conspiracy theories, it also makes sense that unintentional misreading can be a factor. Having been a professor for decades, I know that people often unintentionally misread or misinterpret content.

For the most part, when professors are teaching basic and noncontroversial content, they endeavor to prove the students with a clear and correct reading or interpretation. Naturally, there can be competing interpretations and murky content in academics, but I am focusing on the clear, simple stuff where there is general agreement and little or no opposition. And, of course, no one with anything to gain from advancing another interpretation. Even in such cases, students can misinterpret things quite significantly. To illustrate, consider this passage from the Apology:

 

Socrates: And now, Meletus, I will ask you another question—by Zeus I will:  Which is better, to live among bad citizens, or among good ones?  Answer, friend, I say; the question is one which may be easily answered.  Do not the good do their neighbors good, and the bad do them evil?

Meletus: Certainly.

Socrates: And is there anyone who would rather be injured than benefited by those who live with him?  Answer, my good friend, the law requires you to answer— does any one like to be injured?

Meletus: Certainly not.

Socrates: And when you accuse me of corrupting and deteriorating the youth, do you allege that I corrupt them intentionally or unintentionally?

Meletus: Intentionally, I say.

Socrates: But you have just admitted that the good do their neighbors good, and the evil do them evil.  Now, is that a truth which your superior wisdom has recognized thus early in life, and am I, at my age, in such darkness and ignorance as not to know that if a man with whom I have to live is corrupted by me, I am very likely to be harmed by him; and yet I corrupt him, and intentionally, too—so you say, although neither I nor any other human being is ever likely to be convinced by you.  But either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unintentionally; and on either view of the case you lie.  If my offence is unintentional, the law has no cognizance of unintentional offences: you ought to have taken me privately, and warned and admonished me; for if I had been better advised, I should have left off doing what I only did unintentionally—no doubt I should; but you would have nothing to say to me and refused to teach me.  And now you bring me up in this court, which is a place not of instruction, but of punishment.

 

Socrates’ argument is quite clear and, of course, I go through it carefully because this argument is part of the paper for my Introduction to Philosophy class. Despite this, every class has a few students who read Socrates’ argument as him asserting that he did not corrupt the youth intentionally because they did not harm him. But Socrates does not make that claim; central to his argument is the claim that if he corrupted them, then they would probably harm him. Since he does not want to be harmed, then he either did not corrupt them or did so unintentionally. This is, of course, an easy misinterpretation to make by reading into the argument something that is not there but seems like it perhaps should or at least could be.

My point is that even when the text is clear, even when someone is actively providing the facts, even when there is no controversy, and even when there is nothing to gain by misinterpreting the text, it still occurs. And if this can occur in ideal conditions (a basic, clear, uncontroversial text in a class), then it should be clear how easy it is for misinterpretations to arise in “the wild.” As such, a person can easily misinterpret text or content and sincerely believe they have it right—thus leading to a false claim that can give rise to a conspiracy theory. Things are much worse when a person intends to deceive. Fortunately, there is an easy defense against such mistakes: read more carefully and take the time to confirm that your interpretation is the most plausible. Unfortunately, this requires some effort and the willingness to consider that one might be wrong—which is why misinterpretations occur so often. It is much easier to go with the first reading (or skimming) and more pleasant to simply assume one is right.

 

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Fictional Outrage at Fiction

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Inuendo Studios presents an excellent and approachable analysis of the infamous Gamer Gate and its role in later digital radicalization. This video got me thinking about manufactured outrage, which reminded me of the fake outrage over such video games as Cuphead and Doom. This sort of outrage has also manifested against the She-Ra and He-Man reboots. More mainstream fictional outrage against fiction involved the Republican’s rant about Dr. Seuss being “cancelled.” In the world of gaming and media, this fictional outrage can lead to real consequences, such as death threats, doxing, swatting, and harassment. In the political world, this fictional outrage is weaponized for political gain, ratchets up the political divide between Americans, and escalates emotions. In short, this fictional outrage at fiction makes our world worse.

While it is probably obvious, I call this fictional outrage at fiction for two reasons. The first is that the outrage is fictional: it is manufactured on an imaginary foundation. The second is that the outrage is at works of fiction, such things as games, TV shows, movies, and books. Since Thought Slime, Innuendo Studios, Shaun, and others have ably gone through numerous examples in great detail, I will focus on some of the rhetorical and fallacious methods used in fictional outrage at fiction. These methods also apply to non-fiction targets as well, but I am mainly interested in fiction here—if only to point out that some people put considerable energy into enraging people about make-believe things like games and TV shows. While fiction is subject to moral evaluation, it should be remembered that it is fiction. Although our good dead friend Plato would certainly disagree with me here.

While someone wishing to generate fictional outrage can simply lie, this is often less effective than basing the outrage on a particle of truth. One way to do this is to make use of the rhetorical tool of hyperbole. Exaggerating a true claim allows the user of hyperbole to pretend that they have a foundation in truth while they generate the desired emotional impact. While this can be debated, hyperbole is usually distinguished from outright lying because hyperbole is an exaggeration rather than a complete fabrication. For example, a person who did not catch any fish would be lying if they said they caught a monster of a fish while a person who caught a small fish would be engaged in hyperbole if they made the same claim. It is true they caught a fish, while it is not true that it is a monster of a fish.  There can be debate over what is hyperbole and what is simply a lie. For example, when the Dr. Seuss estate decided to stop publishing six books, the Republicans and their allies claimed that Dr. Seuss had been cancelled by the left. While it is true that six books would not be published, it can be argued whether saying the left cancelled them is hyperbole or simply a lie. Either way, of course, the claim is not true.

Even if the target audience is aware that hyperbole is being used, it can still influence their emotions, especially if they want to believe what is being claimed. So, even if someone recognizes that “wrongdoing” of a games journalist has been absurdly exaggerated, they might still go along with the outrage. A person who is particularly energetic and dramatic in their hyperbole can also use their showmanship to augment its impact.

The defense against hyperbole is, obviously, to determine the truth of the matter. One should always be suspicious of claims that seem extreme or exaggerated, although they should not be automatically dismissed: extreme claims can be true.

A common fallacy used in fictional outrage is the Straw Man fallacy. This fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position, claim or action and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated, or misrepresented version of it. This fallacy often involves the use of hyperbole. This sort of “reasoning” has the following pattern:

 

  1. Person A has position X/makes claim X/did X.
  2. Person B presents Y (which is a distorted version of X).
  3. Person B attacks Y.
  4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed/wrong.

 

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of something does not constitute an attack on the thing itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to physically harm the person. To illustrate the way the fallacy is often used, consider what happened to start the “outrage” over Cuphead. A writer played an early version of the game badly, noted that they were doing badly, and were generally positive about the game. All this was ignored by those wanting to manufacture rage: they presented it as a game journalist condemning the game for being too hard because they are bad at games. At it escalated from there.

The Straw Man fallacy is an excellent way to manufacture rage; one can simply create whatever custom villain they wish by distorting reality. As with hyperbole, there is the question of what distinguishes a straw man from a complete fabrication; the difference is that the Straw Man starts with some truth and then distorts it. To use the Cuphead example, if a person had never even played Cuphead or said anything about it, saying that they hated the game because they are incompetent would be a complete fabrication rather than a straw man.

Straw Man attacks tend to work because people generally do not bother to investigate the accuracy of claims they want to believe; and even if they are not already invested in the claim, checking a claim takes at least some effort—so it is easiest to just believe or not without checking. People also expect others to be truthful, which is increasingly unwise.

The defense against a Straw Man is, obviously, to check the facts. Ideally this would involve going to the original source or at least using a credible and objective source.

A third common fallacy used in fictional outrage is the Hasty Generalization. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not large enough. It has the following form:

 

Premise 1. Sample S, which is too small, is taken from population P.

Conclusion: Claim C is drawn about Population P based on S.

 

The person committing the fallacy is misusing the following type of reasoning, which is known variously as Inductive Generalization, Generalization, and Statistical Generalization:

 

Premise 1: X% of all observed A’s are B’s.

Premise : Therefore X% of all A’s are B’s.

 

The fallacy is committed when not enough A’s are observed to warrant the conclusion. If enough A’s are observed then the reasoning is not fallacious. Since Hasty Generalization is committed when the sample (the observed instances) is too small, it is important to have samples that are large enough when making a generalization.

This fallacy is useful in creating fictional outrage because it “enables” a person to (fallaciously) claim that something is widespread based on a small sample. If the sample is extremely small and it is a matter of an anecdote, then a similar fallacy, Anecdotal Evidence, can be committed. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on an anecdote (a story) about one or a very small number of cases. The fallacy is also committed when someone rejects reasonable statistical data supporting a claim in favor of a single example or small number of examples that go against the claim. The fallacy is considered by some to be a variation on hasty generalization.  It has the following forms:

 

Form One

Premise 1: Anecdote A is told about a member (or small number of members) of Population P.

Conclusion: Claim C is made about Population P based on Anecdote A.

Form Two

  1. Reasonable statistical evidence S exists for general claim C.
  2. Anecdote A is presented that is an exception to or goes against general claim C.
  3. Conclusion: General claim C is rejected.

 

People often fall victim to this fallacy because stories and anecdotes tend to have more psychological influence than statistical data. This leads people to infer that what is true in an anecdote must be true of the whole population or that an anecdote justifies rejecting statistical evidence in favor of said anecdote. Not surprisingly, people most commonly accept this fallacy because they would prefer that what is true in the anecdote is true for the whole population. For example, if one game journalist is critical of a game because it has sexist content, then one might generate outrage by claiming that all game journalists are attacking all games for sexist content.

A person can also combine rhetorical tools and fallacies. For example, an outrage merchant could use hyperbole to create a straw man of an author who wrote a piece about whether video game characters should be more diverse and less stereotypical. The straw man could be something like this author wants to eliminate white men from video games and replace them with women and minorities. This straw man could then be used in the fallacy of Anecdotal Evidence to “support” the claim that “the left” wants to eliminate white men from video games and replace them with women and minorities.

The defense against Hasty Generalization and Anecdotal Evidence is to check to see if the sample size warrants the conclusion being drawn. One way that people try to protect their claims from scrutiny is to use an anonymous enemy—not identifying those in their sample but referring to a vague group such as “those people”, “the left”, “SJWs”, “soy boys” or whatever. If pressed for specific examples that can be checked, a common tactic is to refer to someone who has been subject to a straw man and just use Anecdotal Evidence again. Another common “defense” is to respond with anger and simply insist that there are many examples, while never providing them. Another tactic used here is Headlining.

In this context, Headlining occurs when someone looks at the headline of an article and then simply speculates (or lies) about the content. These misused headlines are often used as “evidence”, especially to “support” straw man claims. For example, an article might be entitled “Diversity and Inclusion in Video Games: A Noble Goal.” The article could be a reasoned and balanced piece on the merits and cons of diversity and inclusion in video games. But the person who “headlines” it (perhaps by linking to it in a video or including just a screen shot) could say that the piece is a hateful screed about eliminating white men from video games. This can be effective for the same reason that the standard Straw Man is effective; few people will bother to read the article. Those who already feel the outrage will almost certainly not bother to check; they will simply assume the content is as claimed (or perhaps not care).

There are many other ways to create fictional outrage at fiction, but I hope this is useful in increasing your defense against such tactics.

 

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Ivermectin & Epistemology

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Americans who have decided to forgo vaccination have been hard hit by COVID. In response, some have been self-medicating with ivermectin. While this drug is best known as a horse de-wormer, the same drug is also used to treat humans for a variety of conditions. And, of course, many medications are used to treat conditions they were not originally intended to treat. Viagra is a famous example of this. As such, the idea of re-purposing a medication is not foolish. But there are obvious problems with taking ivermectin to treat COVID. The most obvious one is that there is not a good reason to believe that the drug is effective; people would be better off seeking established treatment. Another problem is the matter of dosing—the drug has the potential for serious side-effects even at the correct dosage. Since I am not a medical doctor, my main concern is not with the medical aspects of the drug, but with the epistemology. That is, I am interested in why people believe they should take the drug. Though the analysis will focus on ivermectin, the same mechanisms work broadly in belief formation.

Those most likely to use the drug are people in areas hit hard by COVID and subject to anti-vaccine and anti-mask messages from politicians and pundits. These two factors are related: when people do not get vaccinated and do not take precautions against infection, then they are more likely to get infected. This is why there is such a clear correlation between COVID infection rates and the level of Trump support in an area. Crudely put, we are now in what could be justly called the Republican Pandemic. As I discussed in previous essays, the trend in Republican political thought is authoritarianism and the rejection of expertise. There is also a clear desire to “own the libs” by rejecting their beliefs and doing things to make liberals mad. Liberals want people to get vaccinated and wear masks, so “owning the libs” here puts a person at greater risk for COVID. Once a person gets infected, then they need treatment. But why go with ivermectin over proven methods? This seems to be the result of how the right’s base forms their beliefs.

The right’s base seems especially vulnerable to grifters and thus inclined to believe what grifters tell them. This is not because they are less intelligent or less capable than liberals; rather it seems to result from two main factors. The first is that the American right tends to be more authoritarian and thus more inclined to believe because an authority figure they accept tells them to believe. The second is that the American right has waged a long war on critical thinking and expertise—hence people on the right are less inclined to use critical thinking tools effectively in certain contexts and they are likely to dismiss experts who they do not regard as authority figures worthy of their trust.

While ivermectin is being studied scientifically, there is currently no evidence that it can effectively treat COVID. But a small and growing industry has arisen for providing people with unproven or discredited treatments for COVID. While some might be well-intentioned, much of it is a simple grift at the expense of those who have been systematically misled. As such, people believe ivermectin can help them because authority figures have told them they should. But, of course, there is the question of why ivermectin was chosen.

One likely reason is that ivermectin has been shown to impede the replication of the virus. Someone who is misled by wishful thinking would probably not consider the matter further; but it is important to note that this test was conducted in the laboratory using high concentrations of the drug that probably exceed what a human could safely use. To use an analogy, this is a bit like saying that fire is effective in killing the virus—that is true, but that does not make it an effective treatment in humans. As such, there is a bit of truth to the claim that ivermectin influences the virus. For some reason, certain people seem to consistently reason poorly in such contexts; I am inclined to chalk this up to wishful thinking.

There is also the fact that a single, unpublished paper influenced some countries to include the drug in their treatment guidelines. However, this paper was never published because the method used to gather the data is both irregular and unreliable. The company that gathered the data, Surgisphere, is already notorious for its role in scandals involving hydroxychloroquine studies. People seem to have a tendency to believe the first thing they hear about something, especially if they want it to be true—hence this discredited paper holds considerable influence. This is like the case in which those who think vaccines are linked to autism still believe in a long discredited study by a discredited doctor.

One might attempt to respond to this by arguing that there are other papers showing the effectiveness of ivermectin. While this would be a reasonable response if these papers were based on good data, they are not. As has been shown, they suffer from serious errors. But, once again, this does not seem to matter. People such as Preston Smiles, Sidney Powell and Joe Rogan have been promoting the drug and, of course, Fox News personalities have been praising it. It is essentially hydroxychloroquine 2.0. This takes us back to the appeal to authoritarianism: people are believing because authority figures are telling them to believe. There is also a fallacious appeal to authority in effect. For example, Joe Rogan is a comedian and not a doctor; yet people believe him because he is a celebrity.

People might also be motivated to accept the “evidence” of bad data and poor methods because doing so can seem rebellious—by rejecting the methodology of the experts they can see themselves as making up their own minds. By accepting what politicians and celebrities tell them. There might also be a conspiracy theory element at work as well; the idea that “they” do not want them to know about ivermectin (or whatever) and hence they want to believe it works.

At this point, ivermectin has been forged into a battle in the culture war. It must be said that the left helped weaponize it by mocking those who use the drug. But now that it is a political battle, the base will double down and defend it, despite a lack of evidence for their view. That is, they profess to believe because doing so is the stance of their tribe.

There have been efforts to conduct clinical trials of the drug, but these have bizarrely been met with hostility and threats from ivermectin proponents. On the positive side, there will be some data available from the people self-medicating. Unfortunately, it will not be very good data because it will mostly be a collection of self-reported anecdotes. Once again, the deranged culture war of the right is hurting people. Although, as always, some are making a sweet profit.

From the standpoint of reliably forming true beliefs, this approach is the opposite of what a person should take.  Believing based on political authorities, grifters and celebrities claim is not a reliable way to have true beliefs. Accepting flawed studies as evidence is, by definition, a bad idea from the standpoint of believing true things. But these belief forming mechanisms do have advantages.

The politicians, celebrities, and grifters obviously benefit from their base having these ways of forming beliefs. Those who form the beliefs also get something out of it; they can feel the pleasure of expressing their loyalty, the reassurance of wishful thinking, the warm glow of unity with their tribe, and the hot fire of angering the other tribe.

 

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“Refusing” vs “Declining” the Vaccine

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Because of the psychological power of rhetoric, words do matter. As philosophers point out in critical thinking, words have both a denotation (the meaning) and a connotation (the emotions and associations invoked). Words that have the same (or similar) denotation can have very different connotations. For example, “police officer” and “pig” (as slang) have the same denotation but rather different connotations. As would be expected, the fight over vaccines involves rhetoric. One interesting example is that presented by Ben Irvine: “People who don’t want the vaccine aren’t “refusing” it. You don’t say a person is “refusing” to take anti-depressants. Or “refusing” to get married. You can decline without refusing. You decide what’s best for you. Refuse is a manipulative term, loaded with unfair moral pressure.”

As Irvine indicates, while “refuse” and “decline” have similar meanings, they differ in their rhetorical loading. As Irvine sees it, “refuse” is negatively loaded with “unfair moral pressure.” Presumably “decline” lacks this quality.  So, what is the difference between the two words?

In a moral context, “refuse” implies rejecting something actively and with some degree of force. There also often seems to be an implication of expectation that one would accept rather than reject.  Interestingly, the context determines whether the connotation is negative or positive. As would be expected, if what is being refused is seem as morally wrong, then using “refusal” would often suggest something positive. For example, “Sergeant Jane Doe refused to obey an illegal order.” This would suggest something positive, that Doe actively rejected the order and that there is an expectation that soldiers will obey orders. Interestingly, people who believe that requiring COVID vaccinations is morally wrong should embrace the language of refusal—to refuse something wrong is the right thing to do. But “refuse” can also be negative.

As Irvine notes, to say that people who decide not to get vaccinated are refusing the vaccine is to assert that they are actively rejecting it and that it is something that is rightfully expected of them. To illustrate, to say “Sergeant Jane Doe refused to put her child in a child safety seat” would suggest that Doe should be condemned: there is a moral expectation that Doe should protect her child and they failed in this obligation. Or at least failed to do what is right. “Decline” works differently.

In general, “decline” is to pass on something. It is often seen as more passive, more polite, and less forceful than refusal. There is also usually no implied expectation of acceptance. In a moral context, there is usually the assumption that there is no (or little) moral weight involved. To illustrate, “when offered dessert, Joe declined” indicates that Joe merely passed on dessert and was (obviously) under no obligation or expectation to order it. It would be odd to say that Joe refused the dessert, unless he was particularly forceful in his rejection or was for some reason expected to order it. In contrast, it would make sense to say, “Joe refused to pay for the dessert that he did not order or receive and demanded it be removed from his bill.” This is because Joe would seem to be actively rejecting paying and, of course, there is a general expectation that one will pay the bill. Obviously, I am not claiming to be the word police: people can and do use “decline” as the would use “refuse” and vice versa; I am just noting that Irvine has made a reasonable distinction between how we often use these words rhetorically. But is he right?

On the one hand, he does seem to be right: when people talk about vaccine refusal, they are likely to be condemning that decision. Their moral expectation is that people should get the vaccine and hence to not accept it would be a refusal Ilike refusing to put a child in a safety seat) rather than declining it (like a slice of pie). But his point seems to be that this is wrong: people should not use “refuse” because it is “unfair moral manipulation.” He seems to suggest that we should use “decline” instead. If true, then he would be assuming that there is not a legitimate moral expectation that people get vaccinated and thus it is acceptable to decide to remain unvaccinated. For those who disagree with his position, this might seem to be a rhetorical trick.

As discussed above, “decline” implies that the rejection is more passive, less forceful, and of something for which there is no or little expectation of acceptance. To accept that people are declining rather than refusing the vaccine would be to (probably) agree that they are doing nothing wrong or not failing in a moral obligation. That is, they are not refusing to protect others, they are merely declining a shot. This, some might contend, would trivialize their decision: declining to be vaccinated is like declining a slice of pie after dinner and not like refusing to put your child in a child safety seat while driving.  This seems to be a reasonable point: to use “decline” would be to use a term devoid of all moral pressure and thus would assume that those who do not get vaccinated are acting morally (or at least not acting wrongly).

While I think people should get vaccinated, discussing the moral issue without begging the question requires using neutral language: language that neither assumes nor refuses condemnation. As such, when discussing the moral issue of whether people should get vaccinated, we should not use “refuse” or “decline” but should use a neutral description such as “decide to not get vaccinated.” Then the ethics of the decision can be debated. It might turn out, as I believe, that there is a moral obligation to get vaccinated. In which case, the use of “refuse” would be warranted. But it might be the case that there is no such obligation, then the use of “decline” would be warranted.

 

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Does Chicago Prove that Gun Laws Don’t Work?

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In addition to the pandemic, 2020 was marked by “the deadliest gun violence in decades.”  2021 is on track to be worse, with the Fourth of July weekend setting a record for 2021 mass shootings over a weekend. There were over 400 shootings that killed at least 150 people during that time. Those on the left, broadly construed, profess to want to address this problem. Those on the right, broadly construed, offer thoughts and prayers after each mass shooting and then obstruct the left.

While the right tries to present things in terms of an inviolable constitutional right and profess to love such rights, this is clearly a bad faith position. After all, the party is busy restricting voting rights and curtailing liberties and rights they dislike. As such, a true claim would be that the right favors a narrow set of rights for a narrow set of people and gun rights for white people is a major intersection of these sets. To pre-empt the usual ad hominem and straw man attacks, my backstory has given me positive feelings towards guns. From a philosophical standpoint, I have also argued in favor of weapon rights as part of the right to self-defense. This justification does, of course, run up against another of my views in political philosophy. Stealing from Locke and Hobbes, I think that we give up some of our rights when we enter civil society and one can make a good case that this can include the right to possess certain weapons. Somewhat ironically, the people who are mistreated by the political and economic systems would have the best claim to posses and use weapons against those who would harm them. This view is generally the exact opposite of what is pushed by the right. A white couple “protecting” themselves from peaceful protestors legally walking by their property are presented by some as heroes. Minorities who seek to arm themselves are seen in a rather different light. As such, when the right tries to block attempts to address gun violence by appeals to rights, they are generally acting in bad faith: they are not principled defenders of rights, they are working to defend specific rights for specific people. But on to the focus of this essay.

When laws are proposed to address gun violence, one stock tactic of the right is to bring up Chicago. This city is infamous for its gun violence. The Chicago Tribune has a web page, updated weekly, that provides daily totals of shooting victims in the city. It even has an interactive map that allows people to search for shootings. One cannot deny that the city has a problem with gun violence.

As one would expect, there have been efforts to address this violence by passing various gun control laws. While Illinois does not have the strictest gun laws in the United States (California seems to be stricter), the laws are stricter than in almost all other states. And yet, as noted above, gun violence is still a serious problem. From this, folks on the right often infer that gun laws do not work. On the face of it, their logic would seem good:

 

Premise 1: If gun control laws worked, then Chicago would have less gun violence.

Premise 2: Chicago does not have less gun violence.

Conclusion: Gun control laws do not work.

 

Thus, it is no surprise that the “Chicago Card” is regularly played to “refute” efforts to address gun violence by new laws. Unfortunately, this gambit is a cheat: while the logic seems good, a little consideration shows that it has serious flaws. That this is the case can be shown by the following analogy.

Suppose that you live in an apartment complex and would prefer to not die in a fire. So, you install a smoke detector, you buy a fire extinguisher, you don’t allow open flames in your apartment, you do not store oily rags next to your stove and so on for all the sensible things to do to avoid death by fire. But then your apartment burns and you die in the fire. Using the logic of the right, this is how people should reason:

 

Premise 1: If fire prevention practices and rules worked, then you would not have died in the fire.

Premise 2: You died in the fire.

Conclusion: Fire prevention practices and rules do not work.

 

But this seems problematic. Intuitively, these practices and rules would seem to work. So, what went wrong? One possibility is, of course, possibility: things can always go wrong. No sensible person claims that taking precautions against fire will always work. Likewise, the same can happen with gun laws. But, of course, Chicago would be like a case where fires just keep occurring—so the idea that it is just bad luck would go out the window. So, we need to look more at the cause of the fires.

Going back to your apartment building, suppose that your immediate neighbors also took the same precautions as you, but their apartments were also consumed by fire. If the investigation stopped there, one might conclude that precautions do not matter—so having rules about fire safety are pointless. But suppose that the investigators decided to trace the fire to its starting point, and they find the fire began in apartments whose inhabitants took few precautions against fires and some, in fact, engaged in dangerous behavior like leaving burning candles unattended. In this case, the inference would not be that fire prevention and practice do not work. Rather, it would be that to have the best chance of working, then everyone needs to follow them.

Obviously, Chicago is like the apartment where fire safety is practiced. Other states around Illinois are like the apartments without good safety practices. So, just as a fire is more likely to start in those other apartments and spread, guns are likely to come into Chicago from states that have less restrictive rules. As such, Chicago’s gun violence does not prove that restrictions do not work. Rather, it shows that a lack of restrictions in other states can negate restrictions in one state. As such, the Chicago argument is either a bad faith argument or an argument made in ignorance.

In closing, it might be true that laws would not meaningfully reduce gun violence but pointing to Chicago no more proves that then pointing to a burned out apartment of a person who was careful about fire proves that fire safety would not meaningfully reduce fire deaths. Now, if everyone practiced fire safety and fire deaths not diminished, then we could conclude that fire safety was useless. Likewise, if all states had restrictive gun laws that were enforced and gun deaths never diminished, then we could conclude they were useless. But this is not the case.

 

 

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Facebook’s 1996 Ads

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Facebook’s Fallacious Ad

Facebook has been running ads on its platform (and elsewhere) with the following text: “Technology has changed a lot since 1996. Shouldn’t internet regulations change, too? While intended mainly as a rhetorical appeal, it can be presented as an argument:

Premise 1: Technology has changed a lot since 1996.

Conclusion: Internet regulations should change.

On the face of it, the argument has some appeal. It is true that technology has changed a lot since 1996 and these changes might have made some aspects of the internet regulations obsolete. One could even make the obvious argument from analogy: just as dial up modems are now obsolete, the laws created to govern technology at that time are now also obsolete. However, that argument by analogy would be weak (laws age very differently from technology) as is the argument advanced by Facebook.

Facebook’s argument can be seen as a reversed version of the classic Appeal to Tradition fallacy. This is a fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that something is better or correct simply because it is older, traditional, or “always has been done/always been believed.” This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:

 

Premise 1: X is old or traditional.

Conclusion: Therefore, X is correct or good.

 

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because the age of something does not automatically make it correct or better than something newer. This is made quite obvious by the following example: The theory that witches and demons cause disease is far older than the theory that microorganism cause diseases. Therefore, the theory about witches and demons must be true. But this is clearly not the case. The age of thing does not, in general, have any bearing on its quality or correctness (in this context). In the case of tradition, assuming that something is correct just because it is considered a tradition is poor reasoning. For example, if the belief that 1+1 = 56 were a tradition of a group of people it would hardly follow that it is true.

Obviously, age does have a bearing in some contexts. For example, if a person concluded that properly aged cheese would be better than brand new cheese, they would not be committing an Appeal to Tradition. This is because, in such cases the age of the thing is relevant to its quality. Thus, the fallacy is committed only when the age is not, in and of itself, relevant to the claim. What is needed is evidence that age is relevant to the truth or quality of something—that is what is lacking with the fallacious Appeal to Tradition. Interestingly, Facebook is taking an anti-tradition approach: they are concluding that the laws are bad because they are old.

One way to present this is by taking the argument to imply that new regulations would be better because they would be new. This would be the Appeal to Novelty fallacy. This is a fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that something is better or correct simply because it is new(er). This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:

 

Premise 1. X is new(er).

Conclusion: Therefore, X is correct or better.

 

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because the novelty or newness of something does not automatically make it correct or better than something older. This is made obvious by the following example: Joe has proposed that 1+1 should now be equal to 3. When asked why people should accept this, he says that he just came up with the idea. Since it is newer than the idea that 1+1=2, it must be better.

This sort of “reasoning” is appealing for many reasons. The notion of progress (which seems to have come, in part, from the notion of evolution) implies that newer things will be superior to older things. Media advertising often sends the message that newer must be better. Because of these factors (and others) people often accept that a new thing (idea, product, concept, etc.) must be better because it is new. Hence, Novelty is a somewhat common fallacy, especially in advertising.

It should not be assumed that old things must be better than new things any more than it should be assumed that new things are better than old things. The age of a thing does not, in general, have any bearing on its quality or correctness (in this context).

Obviously, age does have a bearing in some contexts. For example, if a person concluded that his day-old milk was better than his two-month old milk, he would not be committing an Appeal to Novelty. This is because in such cases the newness of the thing is relevant to its quality. Thus, the fallacy is committed only when the newness is not, in and of itself, relevant to the claim. It might be pointed out that Facebook is not explicitly claiming that new laws would be better because they are new (and one can easily imagine new laws being passed that are worse than the existing laws). So, it might be best to just go with the Anti-Tradition Fallacy. This is the opposite of the Appeal to Tradition fallacy. This is a fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that something is inferior or  wrong because it is older, traditional, or “always has been done/always been believed.” This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:

 

Premise 1: X is old(er) or traditional.

Conclusion: Therefore, X is incorrect or wrong.

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because the age of something does not automatically make it wrong or incorrect. For example, moral thinkers have long taken murder to be immoral, but the fact that this rule is ancient does not entail that it is incorrect or wrong.

Facebook (and anyone else) could make a reasonable case that the existing laws should be changed; but merely referencing their age as the foundation of  the argument is a fallacy.

 

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