The NFL is the Worst Organization in the World

      With the most recent criminal activity showering all sports headlines, it brings back to the foreground the typical complaints: “That athletes are all trouble,” “They’re out of control” and that “crime is a serious problem in the NFL.” Already, writers are rehashing stories about Vick, Belcher, Brent, Big Ben, and more. Again, the idea here is that NFL athletes are scurge; they are criminals and they are out of control. Well, yeah, some of them certainly are. Some of us normal folk are pricks too. What of it?
      Isaac Rauch, of Deadspin, wrote a piece last December that combated this notion of NFL players being especially crime-riddled. It was mainly a response to an ESPN article by Jeffri Chadiha. Chadiha argued that the league was out of control and accused Goodell of not taking a strong enough stance against criminal activity. However, according Rauch’s article, only 2.9% of NFL players (on average) are likely to commit a crime. This is compared to 10.8% of American males between the age of 22-34.

      And yet, when a player commits a crime, it is the most talked about story for weeks, years in some cases. Perhaps this is the curse of being in the spotlight? After all, TMZ is a thing. The media are obsessed with the wrongdoings of famous folks. They paint a picture of the NFL as being filled with a bunch of transient, self absorbed drama queens, when, in actuality, this really isn’t the case by and large. It just appears this way because, during the offseason, what do football analysts have to do but to overreact to any crime, minor or major, committed by an athlete?
      That is not to say that crime doesn’t happen in the NFL. Obviously it does. I’m also not suggesting that we should ignore it and live with it. The fact that anyone gets behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated and kills their friend/teammate is a serious problem. And we should be doing anything and everything we can to prevent this sort of thing, but just don’t treat athletes any differently. Likewise, no one should be texting pictures of their goalpost to athletic trainers, regardless of whether they are an athlete.
      Honestly, the league has a number of systems in place to assist athletes who seem to have a difficult time adjusting to the lifestyle. There is also a rookie symposium where veterans and professionals come to speak to the newest footballers about what life will be like and to let them know that there is help if they need it. As it happens, the crime rate of NFL athletes has been decreasing since 2006 when it was at it’s peak. 2006 is the year that Goodell took over as Commissioner. So you’ll forgive me if I take these “The NFL is filled with criminals” articles well salted.

The Benevolent God

There is a stock argument against the existence, or at least benevolence, of the Judeo-Christian god. According to theologians, god has three core properties: she is benevolent (all good), omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful). The stock argument goes, “if god is all of these things, how can there be evil/suffering the world? Because, surely, she could stop the evil and suffering from occurring. Since she does not, she either can’t, doesn’t know it’s coming or doesn’t care. i.e. she must not be one of these three things.” To frame the argument formally, it looks like this:

• P1: god is all good
• P2: god is all powerful
• P3: god is all knowing
• P4: There is evil, pain, and suffering in the world
• C: If P4 is true, then either P1, P2 or P3 must be false
• C: P4 is true, therefore, either P1, P2 or P3 is false

Theologians have a few different responses to this argument. One is to argue that “everything happens for a reason. We simply do not understand god’s will.” But when framed against something like the killing of the Jewish community during WWII, the response sort of loses its appeal. It’s hard to imagine that the world is better for this horrific mass murder.

The primary response theists have to this argument is that god is all of three of those things, but she also gave us free will. So if god were to interfere in any way with the acts of man, then she would be violating man’s free will. Therefore, god can be all good, all knowing and all powerful, but still allow there to be evil in the world. There are a number of ways people responded to this explanation, but I only want to look at one of them right now.

And that is to argue from the case of natural disasters. With the increasing variety and unpredictability of recent weather patterns over the last decade or so, these disasters have be flowing in full force. From Hurricanes, to tornadoes, to sinkholes, it seems there is a new disaster every few months. How many thousands of people have been victims of these disasters in the last few years alone? Many. God could have stepped in at any time to prevent them from occurring. After all, stopping a tornado would not affect anyone’s free will, but could have saved numerous lives.

Of course, one may point out that god is notorious for creating natural disasters with the greater good in mind. See the Noah’s Ark story. So she may be utilizing the the same strategy with every hurricane she throws; a sort of planet cleansing disaster.There are certain other problems that arise with this explanation as well, but it is surely plausible.

The sort of disaster I’m thinking of right now, though, is one of a smaller caliber. Last week, a group of elementary students from St. Louis Park, MN were on a field trip at Lilydale Regional Park, in St. Paul, MN. While they were there, a rockslide fell upon the class injuring two students and ultimately killing two as well. Surely, preventing this horrible disaster would have been an easy task for god. She simply could have made the rocks and dirt hold for another 2 minutes until the group had passed, or made the slide occur before the group was in that area. Doing so would not have interfered with anyone’s free will either, one would think, but please correct me if I am wrong. This to me is the most convincing reason for believing the above argument.

The stock response to this is the “everything happens for a reason” argument, aka the “greater good” argument. i.e. the families of those affected are better off now, or at least will be in the future. Which certainly may end up being the case. It also may not end up being the case. Losing a young child in such a horrific way would be nothing short of traumatizing. For their sakes, I hope they do end up making it through. The problem with reasoning this way, though, is that the future is unpredictable. We have no way of knowing if the world is better for this disaster. It’s all a matter of faith that it is. 

But I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it?

The His and Hers Music Collection

The Digital Music Age has brought us many advantages and many changes, and with them all, it has made the already gray area of music use and ownership and lovely blend of Charcoal, Slate, and Ash. The music industry has been battling ‘piracy’ for years and have employed a number of anti-copying tactics. But that’s not that area I want to look at just now. Google Play (Google’s music service) is a cloud style music storage/player. With it, you can upload any and all digital music you might have. The songs are stored over the interwebs making it accessible from most devices with an internet connection. Google has recently updated it’s Play service by incorporating a few new features. It now pretty much does it all. One of the few things that you cannot do, however, is share your music collection with another Google account. Note: I’m not using the social media definition of “Share” here, rather the more traditional one.

I jumped on the Google Play bandwagon a little bit before my Wife did. As a result, I had uploaded a significant amount of our music collection to my account by the time my wife began using the service. So when she did start to use it, we decided to use my account. This was not a problem until we discovered that you can only listen to music on one device at a time. So if I am at work listening to music, and my wife decides to take the dogs on a walk and wants to listen to music while she walks, my music stops playing. Which is, needless to say, quite frustrating.

I used the phrase “our music collection” very purposefully. It is not simply the music that I’ve purchased over the years, it is also the music that my wife has purchased that we’ve uploaded. It is very simply put, all of our music. So far, Google has not provided a way to share what is uploaded to my account, with my wife. 95% of the time, it’s a non-issue. But it is more the principle of the issue than anything else. I didn’t worry too much about it until I started remembering what the pre-digital version of this looked like.

It used to be that when you acquired a new album or EP, you put it on the shelf with the others. To be listened to by anyone that had a shared access to the shelf. In the case of my wife and I, shortly after moving in together, we consolidated our separate CD collections into one slightly bigger collection, thus making it officially “our Music.” If we wanted to listen to any one CD, we took it off the shelf, placed it in the boombox and did so. There is, to my knowledge, nothing illegal or in violation of any music purchasing agreement involved in sharing ownership of a CD. So why is there this restriction with digital music? Particularly when, for all intents and purposes, we share ownership of the digital music.

My brother-in-law framed an argument, in Google’s defense, this way: When you purchase a CD, your friends do not also automatically own it. That is what “sharing” a digital music collection would essentially amount to. The first response to this is that that is exactly the purpose of sharing a music collection. When I purchase an album, my wife simultaneously and automatically owns it as well. The difference is that I would choose who has access to my music collection. It would not be the case that my friends would have access to the music, unless I granted them access.

The response to this would surely be to point out that what’s to stop someone from granting all of their friends and family access to their music collection? This would clearly be a problem. And it might be a problem in terms of money making for the artists, but I don’t think it is a problem for the act of music sharing. If I lived in a large household with, say, 5 other people and I own a large CD collection, it is well within my rights to leave the CDs in the common spaces with the intent that any of my housemates would have access to them and may use any of them at any time. After all, I purchased them, they are my possessions, and I may do with them as I like. Presuming I am not breaking the law. Granted, Digital Law is slightly less cut and dry and is one of the many reasons the issue is so damned gray.

The other case for restricting a user’s ability to share their music collection with another user is to draw another comparison to physical world music. Let’s say I go back to my large CD collection, pick one out and begin to play it. If my friend comes in and tries to take that same CD and play it somewhere else, he cannot, because I am playing it currently. After all, I only purchased one copy, not six. Therefore it would not be fair to be able to listen to the same album on two different computers if you can’t listen to the same CD in two different boomboxes.

This is a legitimate concern. However, with Google Play (and most other music services), it does not matter what albums we are both listening to. My music will stop the moment my wife starts listening to music, even if it is a different album completely. Whereas in the physical world, I may listen to one CD and my wife may listen to a different CD upstairs on a different Boombox.

Although I do not necessarily agree with the idea of restricting how many people have access to the music I own, I do understand how the music industry works. It is exclusively about the Benjamins. However, I think allowing users to share their collection with a small amount of people (three? two?) seems a fair compromise. I also agree that the same album should not be able to be listened to on two devices at the same time. That would also seem like a just restriction seeing as you would not be able to do this in the real world. I think these seem like a fair way to go about this.

Since this is not an option, however, my wife has had to start uploading a number of albums to her google account. Which seems unnecessary to say the least. Why should she have to spend the time and effort in maintaining a separate music collection, essentially just a copy of the one on my account, just so that my music doesn’t stop at work and so that she doesn’t have to turn the music off while she blogs? I’m not sure, and I’d love to see this change. I will not, however, be holding my breath.

Thoughts?

What Does Longevity Tell us?

There’s a response that you see fairly often when discussing Science or Politics: Someone eventually says something to the effect of “We've been doing it this way for years,” or “well this has always been the case.” And this is supposed to settle the matter. But what is this sort of argument really saying? At best, it seems to suggest that a large group of people, or at least the ones in power, have agreed about something for a good length of time. Which is certainly impressive given the wide array of opinions in the world. But at worst, it says next to nothing about the quality, utility or rightness of the longstanding argument or activity.

In Philosophy, this sort of argument is referred to as an “Appeal to Tradition.” It is a fallacy (an invalid argument) that most philosophers will dismiss immediately because by itself, tradition, says nothing about quality. A number of things have withstood the test of time before. It was widely held that the Earth was flat, for instance. Racism and slavery had existed for thousands of years before people realized that they were wrong. Certainly, good things have lasted lifetimes as well. Art, Theatre, Mathematics, Philosophy, etc.But simply existing, or being practiced for a long time just does not say enough about the quality of these things or practices.

The Appeal to Tradition Fallacy has been used for years. It comes to mind again now that Gay Marriage has been legalized in Minnesota. It comes to mind because opponents of Gay Marriage have deemed their view of marriage as “Traditional Marriage.” Which it is, sure. Traditionally, marriage has been only legal for Heterosexual couples. But proponents of Traditional Marriage will often use this phrase as both the title and body of their argument. Thinking that because theirs is the view that’s been held for years, that makes it more likely to be the correct view. And it very well may be the correct view, but they would need to provide a great deal more evidence to support that assertion than just pointing to its longevity.

The other main stage I’ve seen this sort of reasoning used is in Science vs Religion debates. A stock argument against Science is that it is not constant. It changes its views so frequently that it can’t be trusted. “First, the Earth is flat, then it is round? Now it’s billions of years old...? etc.” Whereas religion has held the same beliefs and opinions, more or less, for thousands of years, and therefore, it must be more correct about the state of the Universe than Science is. Clearly, the same arguments can be made to show why this is not a reliable way to reason as well.

So why continue using this widely unreliable type of argument? Well I think there’s a certain intuitive nature to it. We are a tradition centric people. Even within familial units. We traditionalize everything, from holidays to Tuesday night game nights. But as any person whose familial status has changed will tell you, sometimes traditions change or get replaced by new traditions. And more often than not, the new traditions are better than the old.

Preferring The Inconsequent

When we  go through life, it’s difficult to do so without developing certain preferences. We find that we like things a specific way, and much like a fingerprint, our set of preferences are unique to us. This set is comprised of little things like which side of the plate we prefer our beverage to be on, to much larger lifestyle preferences: like who we love or where we want to live, whether we want to have children, etc. (For the sake of this argument, I’m going to do a bit of equivocating and use the word preference to include sexual orientation. I’m not suggesting that it is something that we choose or develop like a taste, but it is still a preference nonetheless.)

Being that we are a judgmental species, one should not be surprised to learn that people often have something to say about other folks’ preferences. Most clearly in the cases of homosexuality or gun ownership. But the judgments are not limiting to large scale issues like these. We needn’t look terribly far back to remember the great Coke v. Pepsi debate. There are even current debates, commercials, and campaigns on the topic of which Search Engines we use (I’m am not Bing man, man. btw). So why get worked up by which type of music someone listens to or other seemingly insignificant opinions?

That is not to say that there aren’t certain preferences that do negatively impact us. For example, Adolf Hitler preferred his “Aryan Race” to that of the Jews. Clearly, that particular preference harmed a great number of people. A resounding majority therefore hold that view to be detrimental and judge holders of it accordingly. Likewise, if a person prefers to imprison and torture innocent people for kicks, that is a problem. You don’t have to do much to convince others that your judgment of this person is justified.

What I suppose that I am saying here is that there are times when it is appropriate to harshly judge people for a particular preference. But there are also times when their preference is of no consequence to us, or anyone else, and we are not justified in our judgment of them. Before we can make that distinction, we need to show why one’s preference might be cause for our criticism. The onus is on us here, the person who will be criticizing someone else’s preferences.

In the case of Hitler, it is rather easy to show how his views were harmful to us or others. When it comes to the cases of Gay Rights and private gun ownership, the responsibility falls to those who oppose these things to show how they are, or can be, harmful to ourselves personally, or society as a whole. It may be difficult to in some cases, but it is still the duty of the person who dislikes someone else’s preference to ask themselves: “Does the fact that Eric prefers men harm me, or others,  in any way?” If the answer is “no,” then Eric’s preference is inconsequent, there is no ill consequence that comes from it. If the answer is “yes,” then our criticism of Eric is justified. But either way, it is up to us to ask this question before we act on any criticisms.

Likewise, we should be asking ourselves this question for small things as well. “Does that fact that Teresa prefers a Toaster Oven to a Toaster affect me, or anyone, in a negative way?” I realize we are not robots, sometimes we subconsciously make judgments before we realize we have. That happens, but be aware of it. We owe the courtesy of asking ourselves this question to our fellow humans.

(Insert your favorite interpretation of the Golden Rule here...)

Just How Important Are Guns To Us?

This question has been buzzing around my head lately. Wrapped up in this answer is the idea of guns being a “Right” versus a “Privilege.” Obviously, the Constitution specifically mentions the “...right to bear arms,” and there are entire books and courses devoted to this concept but I won't go into that particular aspect of the debate here. Ultimately, this distinction does not bear much weight on my argument. Instead though, I want to look at how much we are willing to sacrifice for our “right” to possess firearms. It appears to be a great deal. It would seem that our ability to own a gun is more important to us than a number of things. Reducing the number of gun deaths for instance.

Regardless of your take on gun ownership, what the gun death statistics mean exactly or whether stricter regulations would also reduce gun related deaths, it cannot be denied that prohibiting private gun ownership would dramatically reduce the number of gun related deaths in this country. It wouldn’t eliminate them, of course, likely nothing will, but it would reduce the number significantly. Even if more strict regulations of gun ownership could eventually prove to be as successful as simply prohibiting them, it would certainly not be as sure-fire.

We must then wonder, why, in the face of a certain reducer of gun related deaths, do we refuse to take that step? Why do we not do what we must in order to prevent more public shootings? The people who refuse to surrender their firearms, and their “right” to one, believe that that “right” is more important than reducing the number of gun related deaths. That sounds harsh, but there is no other way to look at it (I would love to hear your thoughts if you think there is, but I have thought about this a great deal).

There is a way to dramatically reduce the number of gun deaths in this country (prohibiting private gun ownership), and there is one idea that conflicts with this plan (I have a right to own a firearm). Again,  it is irrespective of why we believe that right is important.Therefore, if we will not institute a ban on private ownership of guns, it is because we believe that our right to own one is more important than reducing the number of gun deaths. If X and Y are mutually exclusive, and we choose Y, we do so because we believe Y has more value, whatever and whyever that may be, than X. Or vice versa. Likewise here, as a country, we believe there is more value in owning a gun than reducing gun related deaths.

As often comes up in gun rights debates, the same argument could be made to show that private car ownership should be eliminated. Certainly, there are a great number of car related deaths in this country as well. An effective way to reduce this number would be to eliminate private car ownership as well. I am inclined to agree. If we were to leave our transportation needs up to public transit: buses, trains, taxis, etc. there would be a significant drop in vehicular deaths. Likewise, if we leave our gun related needs up to law enforcement (protection) or grocery stores (food) then we will see a significant drop in the number of gun related deaths.

Majority Rulez

 An interesting thought occurred to me today while reading this philosophy article about election percentages and Romney’s various mis-speaks. The winner of the presidential, or any other election, is the candidate who receives the majority of the votes, obviously. This could easily mean, however, that over 45% of the country doesn’t actually want the winning candidate to be president. Or in W Bush’s case, a slight majority didn’t want him to be president. When Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota, almost 2/3 of Minnesotans voted against him.
None of this is new. My question, or thought, is this: What if it took more than just a majority to elect a president? What if it took, say, 75% of Americans to vote her/him into office. Is this even possible? For 75% of Americans to agree on a candidate? Even if it is incredibly unlikely, it almost seems like something we should strive for. I mean, this person is going to be our president. The leader of our country. Would it not be better if more than just half of the country believed in this person?
        Think of how this would change the face of politics. Getting a mere majority of voters to believe in them has not a problem for president’s of America’s past and present, although perhaps trying. The highest margin of victory for the presidency was only 60.3% with President Harding in 1920. But think of the way the game would be changed if candidates had to convince even their sternest opponents to trust them. Perhaps they would have to drop all of their ridiculous rhetoric. Gain more sincerity.
        Again, I’m not saying that this is even possible and it’s hard to imagine how a candidate would do this. I’d like to see it though. It is a goal that could even possibly result in a less divided country in general. I think at least 75% of Americans could agree that that would be a good thing.

Is Cruise Control A Car Thinking?

I’ve been on two small road trips in the last 2 weeks and on multiple occasions, while giving my right foot a much needed rest, I got to wondering: Is my car thinking when it changes speeds whilst set to cruise control? I’ve had this debate with my wife in the past but it’s been a few years, and I feel the need to resurrect it. I don’t really know the answer to this question. It seems like, obviously, that it isn’t thinking. But it’s not that easy to explain why. When we look at the process that occurs prior to a car changing its speed, and all of the factors involved, it appears very similar to the processes that we go through when making a decision of our own. And when we look at these similarities, it seems more difficult to maintain that there is a difference between my thought processes and my Sebring’s.
There are three factors at work in the most common Cruise Control system. This system is called the Proportional-Integral-Derivative Control, or a PID Control. The proportional control simply detects when the speed the car is travelling is higher, or lower, than the set desired speed. If it is different, the control will either open, or close, the throttle more. The Integral control is there to detect the time error. That is, the difference between the distance your car actually travelled, over a set amount of time, and the distance it would have travelled were it going the set desired speed. If you drive up a hill and your car slows down, the integral control will eventually detect this and open the throttle to increase your speed. This is because the distance error will have increased due to the slower speed. Finally, the derivative control is the control that detects any change in speed, also referred to as “acceleration.” If acceleration is detected, this control will immediately adjust the vehicle’s speed appropriately.
If we remove talk of the complex brain processes that also are occurring while we make a decision, it seems that the PID control is at least as complicated as some of our more basic decision making processes. Take, for an example, that we are walking down the sidewalk on our way to work. As we are walking we come across a blocked off section of concrete which has only recently been replaced and which we are not to be walking on. Seeing that we cannot continue to walk in a straight line along the sidewalk, we make the decision to veer off of the sidewalk and onto the street for a few moments until we have passed the blocked off section. After which, we step back onto the sidewalk and continue on until some other obstacle arises.
This example seem suspiciously similar to the operation of Cruise Control. Complex explanation aside, what is happening when a car is set on cruise control and the vehicle changes its speed? Basically, a car is told to travel at a certain speed, the car arrives at a hill and consequently slows its speed. The vehicle recognising that its speed has changed, makes an adjustment. Seems very plain, the car is supposed to do something, it is being hindered, so it makes an adjustment. Just like while we are walking on the sidewalk and the obstacle hinders us, we then had to make an adjustment.
I’m not suggesting that Cruise Control is comparable to any sort of complex human thought processes, merely that it is an example of a lower sort of process that looks a lot like one we may go through at any given time. The sort of process that we may not even realize we are going through at that time. When it comes down to it, the ability to take in information and make an adjustment to our actions based upon that information, that is thinking. And a car does this. It goes through this process. My wife will likely roll her eyes again if she reads this post and I will most likely write a response to this post based on some of the counterarguments that she, and myself, come can up with. Nevertheless, they will have to be some very serious arguments to contend with this apparent similarity between our thinking and my Sebring’s. And if it turns out that Cruise Control is even remotely equivalent to our most simple thought processes, then we will have to accept that perhaps our cars are smarter than we give them credit for.

Arguing With Bad Arguers

What exactly should one do when they find themselves debating some topic with someone who is not actually interested in participating in a “debate?” I recently reread A Rulebook for Arguments the 4th edition, and since then, in day-to-day conversations, watching TV and reading blogs at Talking philosophy, I have been painfully aware of many examples of bad arguing. How does one handle such things? This is not a rhetorical question and I do not have an answer, it simply baffles me. The professional Philosophers who blog on their website seem to take it seriously, but they differ in approach as well.

Some respond directly in an intellectually respectful way. That is to say, if someone writes a comment which is horribly fallacious and doesn’t really have any intellectual merit, the blogger will sometimes respond directly to the claim as if it did have merit and then easily disputes it. They will also ignore the fact that it is an example of a fallacy. The issue here can be that the commenter will not understand that they have erred, or perhaps don’t care, and continue to push their poorly phrased and thought out argument even after the response. So how far do you take polite refutations?

Another situation which will happen on their blog is that they will get commenters who will simply make a statement that is jam filled with rhetoric and insults. How much respect do you give this person? Some philosophers on the site will politely respond to their point intelligently and give them a warning. If they persist with that type of “debate,” then they get booted from the site. Some, don’t issue warnings, some issue many.

Is ignoring them the answer? Because even if the person is proposing their case in such a way that is unhelpful, offensive,etc. they may have a legitimate point buried beneath the rhetoric. So it seems we should probably give them the courtesy of the benefit of the doubt. Say we do give them that, and they respond again in a similar way. How many benefits do we give them before it is appropriate to stop responding?

There are also folks out there who simply are not interested in having an intelligent, two-way debate about something. They have a stance on a particular topic and they are not going to budge. They don’t care how poorly they make their case or how you make yours. How are you supposed to react to that? You can ignore them or you can keep responding in well thought out ways and perhaps they will get the point. But perhaps not. If you address their fallacy they continue to make them, if you ignore it, they continue to make them. It seems like a no win situation.

As an armchair/desk chair philosopher, I enjoy philosophical debate and think that it’s the  path to insight and self reflection. But what do you do with people who aren’t willing to participate, only to angrily make their points and ignore yours? Perhaps it’s to educate them. Treat them as if they were participating properly in hopes that they will. That doesn’t always work though. For me, I simply avoid those people, and discussing philosophical topics with them because they’re not interested in progress. Only in telling me how it is according to them. There’s no such thing as a one-way debate.

The Three Laws Of Robotics

I recently finished reading Isaac Asimov’s futuristic mystery novel The Naked Sun. The book features the partnership of Plainclothesman Elijah Baley of Earth and a Robotic Detective, R. Daneel Olivaw, of the planet Aurora. While working together on a murder case, Baley finds himself having issues with his robotic partner. Baley has a crippling fear of open space of any kind, but, finding himself on a new planet and needing to overcome his fears, he attempts to do just that. However, Olivaw, following the 3 laws built into his positronic brain, will not allow Baley to face his fears because of the discomfort it will certainly cause him. It appears as though robots are incapable of looking to the future. I want to look at exactly what could result from this line of reasoning and see what unfortunate consequences could follow.

The Three Laws of Robotics

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

It sounds incredibly intuitive. After all, Robots are here to serve and protect humans. But dangers do inevitably arise, at least in The Naked Sun. Shortly after arriving on the outer world of Solaria, Baley wishes to attempt to face his upsetting fear of open spaces by sticking his head out of the window of his car. Daneel suggests that he should not do this because it will cause Baley a large amount of discomfort and pain. Baley ignores this and tries anyway only to be physically thwarted by Daneel. Through this revelation, and a few others throughout the book, we begin to see the shortsightedness of The Three Laws, literally. Robots cannot see into the future, obviously, but they also appear to lack the ability to make intuitive predictive leaps i.e. that some things may cause immediate unpleasantness, but will eventually result in a greater, more positive, consequence. Such things as facing a fear. Although it is unpleasant to face our fears, it will result in a better existence for us later if we do.
Daneel, and other robots governed by the three laws cannot see this though. They can only understand the first step of facing our fears, that it will be uncomfortable and likely painful. As a result, a robot will physically restrain you in order to protect you from yourself. But what other sorts of things would a robot be unable to understand and allow? Gruelling exercise routines would have to be prevented. Quitting smoking would not be allowed for the same reasons. Even if you had an aversion to, say, flossing your teeth, a robot would then have to stop you from flossing simply because it would cause unpleasantness for you. This line of reasoning seems to suggest that even surgery would not be permitted. After all, if a robot is only capable of concerning itself with the here and now, the positive eventual results of surgery would be lost in the cloud of extreme pain, fear, etc. that surgery would cause a person.
Now I am not a fictional Roboticist, but it doesn’t seem like an enormously difficult task to write an outcome based understanding into the positronic brain. Robots can do many complicated tasks, why not this one? Perhaps it is difficult. Simply rewriting the law to say something like “...some harm is necessary because it will result in less pain later on” is not sufficient. “Some” is a term that will mean nothing to a robot as it is incalculable. You cannot program intuition, and that is exactly what this sort of reasoning would require. The ability to distinguish between situations which will lead to less pain in the future and ones that will not. Surgery will lead to less pain later, but a stabbing will not (although it will if you die, but that’s another point entirely). There’s a difference there and that difference would have to be programmed into the robot along with the new adapted rule. Indeed every instance would have to be programmed in. The consequence of not doing this, would be that a robot could misread a situation that resulted in pain being permanently caused to a human. e.g. thinking that stabbing is surgery.
In The Naked Sun, multiple robots inadvertently cause harm, or even death, to a human. As a result, the robots became irreparably damaged because they had just broken the First Law of Robotics. The positronic brain cannot handle going against it’s programming and so unless every possible instance of these “bad now, good later” situations are programmed into the robot’s brain, there is a risk that they could get it wrong. And if they do, they risk themselves and the human.
So if it proves to be too difficult to perform this sort of programming, then we are right back where we started. With shortsighted robots who will prevent any and all immediate discomforts regardless of the potential gains. Robots who won't let us face our fears even if we want to or have a tumor removed. Like mentioned above, there are unfortunate consequences to this type of reasoning. Common struggles or activities could become extinct by robotic intervention. Such as exams, which sometimes cause students an extraordinary amount of stress. Through this interpretation of the First Law, robots would be required to prevent a student from taking an exam. Even something as innocuous as football would be stopped as a robot would not understand the “good” arrived at by the pain. Similarly, tattoos would not be allowed.
It’s not difficult to predict where this path would take us: a world where no amount of pain would be allowed, even for positive purposes and the robots would be forced into the role of overbearing restrictors. And, of course, robots would not allow an overthrow of their power because that could lead to eventual pain for humans. Perhaps I’m sliding down the slippery slope here, but I do believe that that was the plot of the film based upon the book with the same title, I, Robot. In The Naked Sun, Asimov himself opened the floodgates for the possible consequences of his laws. Perhaps intentionally. Either way, if a robot cannot allow a human to face a crippling fear, then they also could not allow a human to undergo surgery or quit smoking for the same reasons. And if that’s the case, our freedoms end up restricted and if that happens, then it all falls apart. Of course, this is one of the many reasons why robots are still only existent in the world of Science-Fiction. At least for now anyway....

Why I Don’t Eat Meat Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Tofu

Since Thanksgiving of 2008, I have been a Vegetarian. Not a Vegan, mind you (I have a difficult time letting go of cheese and mayonnaise) but I have abstained from eating red meat, white meat, poultry and fish since then. When asked why I stopped eating meat, I usually answer something to the effect of: “The minimal relative pleasure I receive from eating meat does not outweigh the death of the animal of which I am eating.” This sentence is not necessarily self-explanatory on its own, however. So I plan to carefully lay out my reasoning philosophically for both myself and others.

Let me begin by explaining what I mean when I say the phrase “minimal relative pleasure.” Different things in life give a person simple pleasures, e.g. eating Mac ‘n Cheese, playing BSG with friends, watching a good TV show, etc. Other sorts of things give a larger amount of pleasure, e.g. falling in love, having a child, achieving a great goal, etc. The difference between these two types of pleasures are clear; simple pleasures are fleeting, they don’t stay with you for a long amount of time. They leave no significant mark on your life. The bigger pleasures, by contrast, will stay with you. They are things you will remember and feel for a great deal longer, if not indefinitely, and will leave a strong mark on your life.

It seems clear, then, that eating meat falls under the category of “simple” pleasures, i.e. that the pleasure I receive will fleet and does not make any significant mark on my life. After all, I cannot, right now, say that my life has been significantly impacted by the fact that I likely ate some sort of meat 5 years ago today. It left no mark and the pleasure I received from that meal fled a long time ago. I can say that getting married almost 3 years ago did leave a mark on my life and I still feel pleasure at the thought of it.
It is important to note as well that displeasure can also be categorized in the same two ways. A simple displeasure would be something to the effect of: stubbing your toe, losing a game of chess, having a crappy job, etc. And the bigger displeasures: getting divorced, being convicted of a crime, losing a loved one, etc. The same can be said as before, the bigger displeasures will stick with you, likely until you die, and the simple ones will fade with time, some sooner than others.
Whether non-human animals experience the same capacity and complexity of pleasure and displeasure is a question scientists, psychologists and philosophers have been unable to completely answer thus far, but progress is being made. Chair Philosopher Beth Dixon of Plattsburg University specializes in Ethics and Animals had this to say in her 2001 paper “Animal Emotion. Ethics and the Environment:

“Recent work in the area of ethics and animals suggests that it is philosophically legitimate to ascribe emotions to nonhuman animals. Furthermore, it is sometimes argued that emotionality is a morally relevant psychological state shared by humans and nonhumans.”

Dixon is not alone in her thinking and her opinion is surely not without its critics, but it merely reflects a shift in attitude.

So from Dixon’s claims alone we cannot ascribe such a complexity of emotion to a non-human animal. We can, however, posit whether certain pleasures and displeasures are of the more significant varieties. Eating, for example, is likely not a significant pleasure for non-human animals much like it is not for humans. Death, though, would seem to be the paradigm case of a negative marker being left on any sort of animal’s life, human or otherwise.

Therefore, if the pleasure I would receive from eating an animal’s flesh is of the simple variety, and the animal’s death is of the larger dis-pleasure variety, then the animal’s death far outweighs the minimal pleasure I would receive from eating her. So if the pleasure I would receive from eating meat does not outweigh the animal’s death, I am not justified in eating her at all.

One possible response to this is that eating isn’t really a simple pleasure at all. What’s That perhaps it has to be thought of in terms of the accumulated amount of meat eaten, and that that is a larger pleasure. The problem with this line of reasoning is that any small pleasure would then be turned into a greater pleasure if it accumulated over your life. If eating a certain type of meal over your lifetime is what determines whether it had a significant effect on us, then other single events would have to be thought of in the same way. An event like winning a card game. Perhaps I won a lot of card games in my life. It would be foolish to think that the effect of winning card games throughout my life placed any significant mark on me. If small pleasures are only valued in terms of their accumulated lifetime effect, then we would have to suggest that winning card games is a greater pleasure like falling in love or having a child. Surely no one would suggest this though, so the criticism falls short.

The second criticism is that perhaps animal’s feelings, good or bad, are irrelevant to our, humans, purposes. Animal Rights Philosopher, Peter Singer, argues that it is “speciesist” to think this way. And that non-human animals deserve the same regard and rights as disabled adults or infants. Immanuel Kant even argued, although he did not believe there was anything ethically wrong with treating animals as means to any human’s ends, that we indirectly are morally obligated to treat animals well. He held that we would be damaging ourselves if we were to treat animals poorly. Therefore we must treat them well or risk losing a part of our humanity.

It is possible eating a dead animal could be justified, but only if my pleasure was of the greater variety and the animal’s displeasure was of the simple variety. Alas, this is not the case and I must accept the results. A possible way to test whether or not eating meat is actually a greater pleasure as opposed to a simple one which I suggest it is, would be to determine whether not eating meat has left any significant negative mark on my life. It has left no such mark.

Choosing The Matrix

In the book The Matrix and Philosophy (2002), Professor David Weberman wrote a chapter in which he concluded that given the choice between living in the the inauthentic Matrix world and the authentic real world, the more rational choice is to live in the Matrix. He arrived at this conclusion for a few different reasons, but his most weighty argument is: given that the  Machine’s goal is to insure that humans remain plugged into the Matrix and that they remain alive, it would be in the Machine’s best interest to make the world void of as much suffering and death as they realistically could. Therefore, quality of life for everyone would be greater in the ignorant bliss that is the dream world of the Matrix.

“...The virtual world gives us the opportunity to visit museums and concerts, read Shakespeare and Stephen King, fall in love, make love, and raise children, form deep friendships, and so on. The whole world lies at our feet except that it’s probably better than our world since the machines have every motivation to create and sustain a world without human misery, accidents, disease, and war so as to increase the available energy supply. The real world, on the other hand, is a wasteland. The libraries and the theaters have been destroyed and the skies are always gray.”

Weberman considers the criticism of free will and truth. He responds that the Machines likely would not care what we do while in the Matrix. We would be free to paint, make music, support, or fight against, the government, etc. The only things we could not do would be unplug ourselves or others. So we are almost every bit as autonomously free as if we are in the real world.

Even if choosing the Matrix is more rational, though, there seems to be something at least partly counterintuitive about this choice. Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, Tank, Mouse and Dozer certainly agree. They believe there is something more important to life. Authenticity is intrinsically valuable to them. But can they make this choice for everyone else? If Cypher disagreed with them then others likely will as well. Morpheus even admitted that they do not unplug adults because they have grown attached the fake world and reject the real.

Weberman’s argument can be taken further, though. If his argument above can be taken as a reason to choose the Matrix over the real world as it exists in the film, the same argument can be used to say that it would be more rational to choose the Matrix over the real world as it exists today as well. Given the lessened amount of suffering and death, war and so on. After all, who would not like to live in a world with less of these things? Is this not the goal of most doctors, scientists, politicians and the like?
So if we were presented with an opportunity to live in a virtual world designed to contain no “human misery” of any sort, a world in which we are still free to choose any profession or activity, and we could be ensured that our physical bodies were being preserved in the real world, I would expect to see this virtual world heavily populated. The question is, for how long?

Naming Names

I am currently a part-time Retail Cashier at Target Field in Minneapolis, MN. The company I work for manages stadiums and parks across the globe and has been doing so for several decades. In their time doing so, they have developed certain “protocols” for how the retail trans/inter-action is to occur. At this time, I wish to focus on one particular rule: “The cashier must say the guest’s name three times throughout the transaction.” They do, however, accept that not all transactions give rise to the opportunity to learn the guest’s name. i.e. cash transactions. Also, that cashiers are not, then, required to outright ask a guest for their name. Personally, I find the “three name” rule abhorrent and will spend the rest of this entry trying to figure out why.
It is not difficult to imagine the company’s thought process. It was most probably something like: Customers will most likely leave a store happy if a positive, personal, experience is had. If a customer leaves a store happy, they will most likely return to that store again looking for another positive, personal experience. Therefore, the best way to ensure repeat patronage is to create that experience. We can call this the “Cheers” argument. Words taken from the theme song:

"Sometimes you want to go,

Where everybody knows your name,

and they're always glad you came."

And it’s true. That is what we want, as a customer; that feeling of inclusion, of welcome. It’s an experience we will go back for. Therefore, if the “three name” rule creates this feeling for a customer, and the “Cheers” argument is true, then the “three name” rule is justified. On the face of it, the “Cheers” argument sounds like a solid one for the existence of the “three name” rule. I would argue, though, that that is not the case. That it is a non-sequitur and that the name rule does not follow from the “Cheers” argument at all.

I think that the “Cheers” argument is correct, and most probably the best way to ensure that your customers will return to your store in the future. The point I disagree with is the assertion that the “three name” rule is the way to accomplish that goal. The company will reason that saying “Here is your Discover Card back, Mr. Plato” will somehow, instantaneously, make  him feel that Cheers-like feeling. Personally, I do not find this to be the case. The only people who seem to react positively to this sort of exchange are the secret shoppers who are there to see if you’re following the rule in the first place. The majority of the time, the guest hears their name and they sort of clam up like someone’s just infringed upon their personal bubble.
From personal experience, both as a cashier and as a patron, I have felt similarly when my name is read off of my badge or debit card. It’s a feeling not too dissimilar from getting a phone call from someone whom you did not give your phone number to. Perhaps neither are the most offensive things in the world but both are cases where the information is such that you would prefer to have given it out voluntarily. In either case, we end up feeling slightly put-off. So not only is the “three name” rule not the best way to accomplish the “Cheers” result, it is often counterproductive and can, at best, be neutral.
So is there an alternative to the name rule, perhaps a successful way to achieve the result of the “Cheers” argument? Well, in conjunction with general politeness and attentiveness, having a genuine conversation with the guest is going to provide a good deal more success than simply saying their name one to three times. It is far less awkward and more successful to, say, strike up a conversation about where the guest is from, or about an intriguing tattoo or a piece of clothing they have on. This is a genuine attempt at connection and even if it is a complete failure, the guest will appreciate that more than simply saying their name as you give them their credit card back. One of the reasons is that anyone can say your name, but not everyone can carry out a real conversation successfully. It takes observation, intelligence and skill and it will make a greater impact on the guest.
So perhaps abhorrent is the wrong word. I don’t actually think that it can be argued that the “three name” rule is unethical, but is more likely simply the result of a poor understanding of human interaction. It is not this reason alone, though, for which I flatly refuse to abide by this rule, although it is certainly a factor. There is just something that feels so repugnant and distasteful about it. Perhaps it is simply that I would not wish a cashier to steal my name from my debit card and toss it back at me like they were my friend. So then, following the logic of the Golden Rule, I am turned away from doing so to others. Whatever the reason may be, I will continue with the best way I know how to be a good cashier, and will continue to only say the guest’s name when my supervisor is standing directly behind me.