Review of Lepore's "These Truths"

I recently finished Jill Lepore's "These Truths", a history of the United States told in 800 pages. I had known of the book for some time but resisted reading it because I feared it would be dominated by outrage at the racist and misogynist aspects of US history. In that I was pleasantly surprised. It did devote considerable attention to those issues, more than any history written 50 years ago would have, but the consideration was even-handed. Like any good historian, she recognized that past actions have to be judged by how things seemed at the time, and how political realities -- what they could realistically achieve -- constrained the actions of good-hearted people.

The acceptance of slavery in the US constitution is often referred to as our original sin and the source of so much later strife, but I haven't seen anyone explore what would have happened if the north had held firm and refused to enter a union that included protection of slavery. My first guess is that the equivalent of the 1861 Confederacy would have arisen much earlier in a slave-holding South along with a free North United States, the two engaged in accelerated conflict as they tried to expand west faster than the other nation. The fact that the US as we know it would not exist doesn't trouble me especially, I would just want to know whether overall the two societies would have been more or less just. My initial guess is that slavery would have persisted in the south much longer than it in fact did. The compromise that created a very imperfect union was resolved by a civil war starting in 1861. But enough of my speculation and back to the book.

I have read a few dozen books of history. This includes biographies of the more prominent US Presidents. But I read about no one more recent than Nixon, and even there I skipped the sections about the Vietnam war and Watergate. Part of the reason was that since I lived through them as an adult (I turned 14 in 1968) I already knew about them. Part of me knew this was a flawed perspective, and that we can make sense out of events a few decades after the fact that we could not simply by living through them. Another reason I avoided recent history was that I found so much of it depressing. Starting in 1976 I had dreams of radical transformation which had moderated to liberal dreamd by 1985. But even the liberal dreams have not been realized. As I read Lepore's account of recent decades, I did find myself feeling despair, but I made myself keep going to the end.

So what did I learn? There were tidbits of interest in themselves. For instance, one significant impetus to the Civil Rights movement at the level of the nation's elite was a Cold War concern. It was difficult to portray America as a totally wonderful model to Third World peoples when the South was segregated by race -- a fact which figured in Soviet propaganda.

But to me the most interesting assertion was how early people expressed concern about manipulation in political discourse. The 19th century ideal was ordinary people reading newspaper accounts of the issues of the day and discussing them with each other. But even in the 1920s and 1930s there were people whose job it was to find and disseminate short, emotional messages that by no means contained the whole truth. There was polling to determine which messages would help a candidate or hurt a cause (one notable cause that got hurt, repeatedly, was national health insurance). These methods worked, and proponents of a more rational discourse were dismayed. Lepore traces how these trends have gradually accelerated to the point where we now have Donald Trump.

She traces much of the polarization in this country to deregulation of the airwaves. She asserts that the period from 1950 to 1980 was the least polarized in US history, and one reason was that there were only three TV stations, all giving moderate or balanced views and constrained by the fairness doctrine, which said that different sides of major issues had to be presented. She also notes that since all the networks had the news on at 6:30, those who were not so interested in politics would typically sit through a half hour of news and be exposed to moderate views. Once cable TV came in, those same people could just switch the channel. For those who were interested in politics, once the fairness doctrine was repealed, stations could and did emerge that catered to just one political point of view. Fox News was a dramatic example. People could watch networks which matched their political preferences, and those networks would amplify and reinforce those preferences, leading to polarization. The roots go back much further than the internet.

She offers literally no solutions to this problem, turning in her last pages to nothing but metaphors and a vague prescription of a need to rebuild anew.

While she has a liberal slant on things, she has plenty of criticism in store for the left. I had always thought that the Democratic loss of the white working class was due to neglect on their part and manipulation by Republicans, but she cites some examples of more active Democratic disavowal of their importance, which I found disheartening. She is deeply critical of the identity politics that comes from intersectional feminism, which strives to discover which groups are more oppressed than others and emphasizes differences rather than what we hold in common. A key root of this problem was the belief of college students starting in the 1970s that there is no objective reality and nothing but power relations. I had always thought only a misguided fringe of people actually believed that, but Lepore makes me confront the fact that I might have been very wrong about that.

My best solution to the gulf between red and blue has been for people whose family connections include those on both sides of the red/blue divide to sit down and seriously debate the issues. But my own experience and those of others is that this can be extremely difficult. Both sides have an explanation for how their opponents came to their misguided views -- they listen to fake news. And without a shared set of facts, it's hard to make progress. (I feel confident that the red news is fake and blue news is true -- what is considered newsworthy and its interpretation may be biased, but the facts it is based on are the true ones.)

Lepore's book contains virtually nothing about the danger of climate change. Perhaps this makes sense, since it is in political terms a recent development, and the consequences have yet to be felt. Yet the evidence is that the consequences will be very severe indeed, and the only real debate is just how severe.

Schrodinger's Ginsburg

I wish the rest of Justice Ginsburg's life to be long, happy, and meaningful, and for her to choose how she wishes to live it.

And yet there is a political perspective on the issue. Perhaps keeping Republicans from transforming her seat on the Court from Blue to Red would be the meaning she would choose, were it possible.

If she in fact dies before December of 2020, I find it unlikely the Republicans who currently control the Senate would not vote to replace her with Donald Trump's nominee. They might even pledge not to do this until the November elections are over -- but then if Trump loses, to do this in a lame-duck session in December. If she in facts lives more than four years longer than Scalia did, the Republicans would be inconsistent in not deferring the decision until after the election and letting the next President decide, but it is hard to believe that in today's polarized climate this would stop them.

So here is my plan, if Ginsburg comes to feel she is dying. She should take a trip to Canada, and hide out in the home of some sympathetic individual -- perhaps a large estate that includes armed security. She should give instructions that if she dies, no one should reveal the fact that she has died until February, 2021. Trusted medical personnel should pay visits to the premises until that time. She could get the medical care she needs. If she dies, they could simply put her body into a deep freeze on the premises and continue to visit. I do not believe it is a crime to not promptly report the death of a person. If it is a crime, it is a minor one. The relevant law would be Canadian.

Hopefully even the Republicans would be very leery of voting to replace a Justice when there is no clear evidence that she is dead. (They would be very embarrassed if in fact she was not dead and made a public appearance at that time.) They could try to impeach her for failure to perform her duties, but the Democrats have enough votes in the Senate to block her conviction. If they did replace her on the speculation that she was dead, it might justify (in the minds of many) a Democratic congress and President (if and when elected) to take a dramatic step like passing legislation to increase the size of the court and filling the new seats with their nominees.

It might seem like a gruesome idea. I would never suggest it unless Justice Ginsburg herself enthusiastically agreed, but in the age of polarization, she might agree that severe consequences could call for severe measures to head them off.

There is a famous thought experiment in physics known as <Schrodinger's Cat>. A cat is placed in a sealed box with some device that might based on random processes either release a poison to kill the cat, or not, but undetectable outside the box. In line with the philosophy of modern physics, once the box is sealed the cat is in fact in an indeterminate state that is neither alive nor dead. From the perspective of the outside world, we could create Schrodinger's Ginsburg.

Vital: Swing-state head-to-head polls

Suppose you're a liberal Democrat (like me) who would clearly prefer Warren or Sanders to Joe Biden as President. But you want to make sure a Democrat wins.

So the main dilemma for the Democratic primary voters is: Do you want a very liberal candidate who can fire up the base (think Elizabeth Warren) or do you want a middle-of-the-road comfortable candidate (think Joe Biden)?

Below is exactly the sort of information that plays into that calculus:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/upshot/trump-biden-warren-polls.html

In case that story is behind a paywall for you, I put the basic facts at the end of this post.

You ask voters in the swing states how they would vote given head-to-head matchups of Trump vs Biden and Trump vs Warren.

The fact that the polls are so close is actually very disheartening. It means that an awful lot of people don't really understand or care that our entire system of constitutional government is under attack. But I guess we knew that.

But the polls suggest that Biden would beat Trump, Sanders would beat Trump but not by so much, but Trump would beat Warren. The 7 percent or so of people who aren't already strongly committed Republicans on the one hand or Democrats on the other don't like Warren but are open to Biden.

Now, of course this is just one poll, subject to its own biases. It is taken a year before the election. It doesn't say anything about turnout. But it is the basic sort of reason to prefer Biden to Warren.

But overall turnout is not what's important. I fear that if lots and lots of people in blue states are inspired by Warren and come out in huge numbers on election day -- that makes no difference. What crucially matters is who comes out to vote in the swing states. Warren might fire up the Democratic base there, but opposition to her might fire up the Republican base.

It is very frustrating to liberals to see how conservative the country has been running, especially as they (liberals) are in the majority. It's tempting to see Warren (or Sanders) as a liberal breath of fresh air -- finally lots of good ideas. Get money out of politics, make taxation progressive again, lots of liberal programs, etc. She has the programs I like. If I knew she would be elected and be a dictator until the next election, I would be all in favor. I like her better in just about every way. But the truth is a great deal of her program won't get implemented even if the Democrats win the Senate. If they don't, very little indeed will get implemented -- it would be just what can be done with executive orders. And then, a possibility of enormous weight: if she doesn't win, it doesn't matter how great her program is.

So I am reminded of the part in "Fiddler on the Roof" where the Jewish residents of the village are being forced to leave (https://www.quotes.net/mquote/31618):

A villager asks, "Rabbi, we've been waiting for the Messiah all our lives. Wouldn't now be a good time for him to come?". And the rabbi replies: "I guess we'll have to wait someplace else."

It's high time for liberals to hold the reins of power, but it can't be done yet. It will take patience. Winning the Presidency is a way to stem the tide of assault on the constitutional system. That is more important than anything else. So I will have my eyes firmly on polls that address the exact question these polls asked, and expect my vote to be governed by what they say when it's time for me to vote.

--------------------------------

How Trump fares among registered voters. [The three numbers under each state are who wins against Biden (first line), Sanders (second line) or Warren (third line).]

Trump vs. Biden, Sanders, and Warren

Michigan (n=501)

Even

Sanders +2

Trump +6

Pennsylvania (661)

Biden +3

Sanders +1

Even

Wisconsin (651)

Biden +3

Sanders +2

Even

Florida (650)

Biden +2

Trump +1

Trump +4

Arizona (652)

Biden +5

Trump +1

Warren +2

North Carolina (651)

Trump +2

Trump +3

Trump +3

Based on a New York Times/Siena College poll of 3,766 registered voters from Oct. 13 to Oct. 26.

The grave threat of Donald Trump

The Jewish Passover song "Dayenu" is a whole list of many great things God has done. The word "dayenu" means roughly "It would have been enough". It would have been enough if he had brought us out of Egypt, it would have been enough if he had slain their first-born, it would have been enough if he had parted the waters for us. But he did all those things, and all together he is even more worthy of worship and praise.

I am tempted to use the same format in describing my objections to Donald Trump.

It would have been enough if he was a Republican, which in the last several decades implies a strong conservatism -- notably a sense that a social safety net is a bad thing, and that the government can't possibly be the solution to any problem. While he tossed out a few populist ideas on the campaign trail, in office he has stayed strictly with the Republican agenda.

It would have been enough that he is an unashamed pussy-grabber. It would have been enough that he fuels racial hatred. It would have been enough that he attacks all his opponents viciously. It would have been enough that he lies blatantly and repeatedly and claims that the mainstream press offers nothing but fake news. It would have been enough that he started a pointless trade war. It would have been enough that he let down the Kurds on some sort of personal whim. I have no doubt forgotten many others. It is a frightening thought that by law he can at his sole discretion order a nuclear attack if that is his whim. The only thing that might prevent this is the refusal of his subordinates to carry out the order.

But all those things pale in significance against his assault on the US form of constitutional government. In the clearest case to date, he believes he can withhold aid from a US ally until they undertake an investigation and claim wrongdoing by his domestic political opponent for his own political gain. He can viciously attack the constitutionally mandated investigation of his possible wrongdoing by the Congress. It seems his obstruction is just beginning.

Trump himself would be nothing if a substantial minority of the country hadn't elected him. He would soon become nothing if a significant part of that same substantial minority abandoned him. The combination of malice and ignorance that motivate ardent Trump supporters in various proportions is frightening. In the long term, we should be able to work on the ignorance, though malice is a harder problem. But in the mean time they are still a minority and one that can be thwarted at the ballot box.

It's hard to exaggerate how much has changed in the last few decades. Certainly in 1980, prior to the Reagan revolution, and for some time after that, a president behaving as Trump is would have been impeached and removed from office by a nearly unanimous vote of the Senate. This appears unlikely now because Republicans refuse to abandon him. To what extent that is due to their own firm convictions and to what extent it is fear of getting "primaried" by Trump supporters really doesn't matter. And that means that these Republican officials too are a serious threat to our constitutional form of government. It is a sobering thought that if Trump goes, others will likely rise to take the same approach to undermining the constitution. They likely will not repeat Trump's ineptitude and impulsiveness, and so they might be even more of a threat.

The Republican party itself has become a threat to the constitution. The solution is to vote this party out of office until such time as the party re-invents with respect for the constitution.

I have always thought such sentiments as, "Don't vote, it only encourages them" and "Politicians are all alike", and "Politicians should be changed frequently, like diapers, and for the same reason" were unhelpful and silly. At this point, I feel they are a deadly threat to our democracy. There is nothing more important than protecting our democratic form of government. Within our system partisan gridlock is frustrating, but we can work for its eventual resolution. Occasionally there is bipartisan consensus and things do get done. Without respect for the constitution, all of that is at risk. There is an aversion to comparing anyone to Hitler, but in one particular respect there is an apt analogy here: Hitler came to power largely through free and fair elections. He was only able to cancel further elections because of widespread support. We all know that didn't end well.

To make the seriousness of my position clear, if Trump's opponent in the fall of 2020 was Mitt Romney, I would strongly support Mitt Romney. If it was a modern incarnation of George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan, I would strongly support them. If it was Michael Pence as he was in the summer of 2016, I would support him, though I'm not sure if his defense of Trump since then has corrupted his own support for the constitution. I find the politics of all of those people to be repulsive. But if indeed they support and respect the constitution, I would favor them strongly and work for their election.

Needless to say, I will strongly support his actual Democratic opponent, whoever that might be. My view tends to make "electability" a prime concern. Moderation in many Democratic legislators, if not partisan gridlock, is likely to prevent major policy initiatives being passed anyway, but return to respect for the constitution is an achievable goal.

And in November of 2020, I will consider anyone who stays home because it doesn't matter to be a gravely mistaken and morally bankrupt person. Similarly with anyone who votes Republican except out of ignorance.

A role for the language police

My mother felt that any educated person should understand the fine points of grammar, and that those who failed in that regard showed laziness and lack of education. "Irregardless" was worthy of derision because of the double negative. Tom Paxton got a derisive laugh from the "Marvelous Toy" line that his son "loves it just like me", as it necessarily meant that the boy loved the toy in the same way he loved his father. Knowing the conjugations of "lay/laid/laid" (transitive) and "lie/lay/lain" (intransive) was vital. Growing up in Durham, New Hampshire, the town was a mix of those with more standard US accents and the local New England accent. When my English teacher at parents' night said she tried to make sure her students' use of language was "akkuhrat" and "cahful" my mother thought she was not being provincial -- she was wrong.

Then I was introduced in college to the serious scientific study of language and the distinction between prescriptive linguistics (how people should speak or write) and descriptive linguistics (how people actually speak or write). Prescriptive rules were silly, because language is constantly changing. Black English was the example of choice (not the Boston accent) of how different dialects of English had their own rules that weren't those of standard English -- different, but just as sensible.

Not so many years ago older folks were concerned that young people used "like" so much, putting it in places it never would have belonged in the past. I read a linguistics paper describing the phenomenon, and finding four or five specific functions that the word served in that sort of speech, with specific rules governing where and when it could appear.

At the level of descriptive linguistics, language is full of generalizations that hold for everyone -- they are invisible to us because we all agree on them. Compare,

Although he was tired, Bill kept on walking.

*He kept on walking although Bill was tired.

You can sometimes introduce a pronoun before the word it refers to, but not always. The leading asterisk is the linguist's notation for saying it is ungrammatical. No dialect of English on earth is going to allow the second construction, no grammar book is going to bother to tell you it's not allowed, and no one ever gets it wrong. The second sentence makes sense only if Bill is some other person entirely. This is part of descriptive linguistics, finding generalizations that we humans are simply not aware of.

Enlightened linguistics recognizes that language changes, so that yesterday's hard-and-fast rule is relaxed, and yesterday's convention isn't true any more. I myself have been surprised that things I was raised to believe were completely forbidden are now accepted usage. As this view is more generally accepted, it tends to give rise to "anything goes". As long as people can understand what you mean, who cares if it violates some longstanding rule?

I have a slightly different vision. The language police serve the role of slowing down language change. When they tell people they are using language wrong, they make sure people realize when they say things in a new way that in recent history they didn't. It nudges them back into line with past usage if there isn't some good reason to change it. Sometimes language has to change. New technology is an obvious cause. Other times it isn't clear why language has to change, but it does. There is some underlying force that makes it happen. And when that happens the language police will lose. But in the mean time they push back against whimsical language change.

I'm not an avid language policer myself, but it can of course be done different ways. I might be inclined to say, "You know, until recently that would have been considered wrong" rather than, "What you're saying is bad English!" But I'm still open to the idea that that latter formulation might be serving a useful purpose.

Why some beneficiaries do not like redistribution

In a <recent post> I argued that moral responsibility depended on the concept of free will and consciousness. Actually, the same holds not just for moral responsibility but any kind of responsibility at all.

One issue at the center of US political debate is redistribution. To what extent should we tax the wealthy and those with high incomes in order to provide services for those who are poor?

The classic conservative argument is roughly, "I've worked hard to get where I am and I'm proud of it. Those people who want help are lazy. People who try hard can make it and don't need help." As you might expect, you hear this argument more from people who are wealthier and more successful, but you also hear it from those who don't have much but are proud of what they do have and can see how they would have even less if they hadn't worked hard and been prudent.

The liberal argument is roughly, "Those who are successful have made it partly through their hard work, but they have also made it through the advantages that come from a privileged background, maybe even good genes. Some have literally inherited their wealth, for some luck has played a large role, and some got where they are from illegal and unethical dealings. So it's right that they have more money than other people, but it's also perfectly fine to take some of what they have earned by way of taxes."

So, how much responsibility do we have for how our lives go? If we have no free will, then we aren't responsible at all, but as I have argued no one can really live without the idea that they make choices freely. But even if you allow for free will, science would strongly suggest that factors outside of a person's control have a great deal to do with how well they do in life.

It is apparent to even conservatives that some people are not responsible for their ill fortune, including those born with severe intellectual or physical handicaps. And I believe most will support the idea of helping out such people through government action or private charity.

But a key issue is not just how much control we have over our lives but how much control we want to believe we have. Answer: people want to believe they have control. This is one explanation for why so many poorer Americans vote against their own economic interests. It may not be pleasant to think that they are poor because they haven't worked hard and been prudent. But it might be even more unpleasant to think that they really didn't have much control -- they would still be poor even if they had tried harder. The one reflects poorly on them as individuals, the other undermines their whole idea of humans having control over their destiny. This could also explain why some poor people don't want to tax the wealthy more -- they judge that the wealthy made it through their own choices and should be able to enjoy what they made.

The formulation of the liberal view taken to an extreme is, "From each according to his means, to each according to his needs." It is a truly noble idea. We all work for the benefit of all. The problem comes in practice. Most people value the well-being of their own families more than the society at large. If their level of effort has no effect on how well-off their families are, that is lack of control over what they value, and most of them stop working hard. That is an argument for why we should reward those who succeed far more than the share of their success that is due to their own efforts. Suppose for instance that we say that 90% of a person's success is due to factors beyond their control and 10% to their own efforts. That might suggest taxing 90% of everyone's income and redistributing it according to need. But how people respond to incentives suggests that we should actually let successful people keep far more than 10% -- many times more.

It's also worth reflecting that the idea of government safety net programs is quite a modern invention. It depends on having a considerable degree of wealth in a society. In the US it originated in the 1930s with New Deal programs. Before that, the assumption was that those who couldn't find a way to eke out a living would just die -- which is of course the way the entire natural world operates. Safety nets may be a recent invention, but they are a wonderful one.

I favor a considerable degree of economic redistribution -- universal health insurance, subsidized child care, a vastly expanded earned income credit, perhaps a guaranteed basic income, to name a few -- but have sketched out some reasons for why there is resistance to these ideas even among those who would benefit from them.

Now it is time for impeachment

I argued against Trump impeachment in <this post>. The Ukraine allegations have shifted the balance, and of course I am far from alone in reaching that conclusion. I find myself in agreement with most of the articles and "friendly" op-eds in the New York Times. I don't think I have much to add beyond what they say, which makes it tempting to skip this blog post. But I'll make it anyway.

I argued before that if you can't get a conviction, it's best not to impeach. But the Ukraine case changes things. Trump is using the power of his office with foreign governments to help get him reelected in 2020, and that undermines our democracy going forward, not just in retrospect.

I can't say I'm newly outraged. My outrage meter has been pegged to the top of the gauge for a long time now. Reasons to be outraged about Trump are layered one on top of the other... there are many layers. Instead of feeling outraged, I'm rather hoping this is an opportunity to get rid of Trump and Trumpism more effectively in the 2020 election -- and perhaps to constrain his behavior between now and then.

A big part of the problem is that the crucial constituency here are those ardent pro-Trump voters who vote in disproportionate numbers in Senate primary contests. Republican senators are very wary of provoking their ire. So the politics centers heavily on what those pro-Trump voters think.

What do they really think? What would it take for some significant portion of them to abandon Trump? I don't really know.

When Trump was elected, I worried that he might simply order the military to arrest Congress. The leftists and centrists would be outraged, but would it be enough? Would Trump voters have just cheered him on as President For Life? There are of course ways to subvert democracy without arresting Congress, and Trump has already used some of those methods (as in withholding a contract from Amazon because of Jeff Bezos's politics), but the subtlety might well be lost on Trump voters.

The readiness with which Trump and allies (including notably Fox News) will lie and obfuscate is concerning. A look at the Fox page shows their guns are blazing as never before. Earlier today there was an "Aha!" story claiming Schiff did the same thing as Trump. Why? Because some prankster claiming to be from Ukraine with dirt on Trump called him a couple years ago and he said he would be interested in that information. There is just no parallel. When someone offers information to someone in the intelligence community, they naturally take it. Whether they find it credible when they get it and what they would do with it are separate questions, but accepting the information is not a problem.

There are three key parties on the Republican side of this issue. First, Trump is a strange, despicable human being. Second, there are Trump voters, and I don't know what makes them tick. They might just be very ignorant, and think there's nothing more important at stake than how it feels good when Trump zings people they don't like. There are people (and not just right-wingers) who think "Don't vote, it just encourages them" is a funny bumper sticker. Third, there are the Republican senators. I'm convinced they aren't ignorant and they know enough history to understand the danger of tyranny. You imagine most of them would personally prefer a Pence presidency to a Trump presidency, if their voters would let them get away with it. And now it's time for them to look in the mirror. On the one side, democracy itself is at stake. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance and the spotlight is now on them. On the other side, their jobs might be at risk if they can't sell an anti-Trump position. Lots of us face job insecurity, and risk losing our jobs if we do the right thing. We can sympathize with people who don't do the right thing if losing the job means financial ruin. But ex-senators do not face financial ruin.

Positive things could happen without Trump actually being removed from office. If Republican senators privately tell him that they will vote against him if he goes too far, it could moderate his behavior without the senators having to pay the political price.

If we assume that Trump is defeated in 2020, the picture still does not look very good unless the Democrats retake the Senate. We face ongoing gridlock in this highly polarized era unless Senate, House, and President are all from the same party. I suppose Republican senators might worry about losing to a Democrat in the final election, as well as worrying about losing to a Trump supporter in the primary. I don't have strong intuitions about how the impeachment process will play out in terms of the Senate count. If tribalism continues, Republican-leaning states will continue to elect Republican senators.

But far more is at stake here than partisan politics. Much as I dislike Pence's politics, I do not have any reason to think he is inclined to disrupt international relations and the integrity of the political process. I just hope there is not some other demagogue ready to take Trump's place if he goes.

The linkage of free will, consciousness, and morality

The scientific worldview has been dramatically successful in explaining how things work and letting us build technology to vastly improve our lives. The one mystery it has no idea how to explain is consciousness -- the fact that we all feel a "seemingness" to life.

Science also holds that free will is impossible -- the idea that there is a "self" that makes decisions for reasons other than a causal interplay of physical processes. As I see it, consciousness is essential to our concept of free will. If we are unaware of having alternatives and choosing one of them, then we did not exercise our will. On the other hand, consider a very sophisticated computer program. We can point to inputs from the program's environment, which could include truly random inputs like radioactive decay, interwoven with an extremely complicated series of computations. Despite all the complexity, we still wouldn't say that the computer had free will.

Science also has nothing to say about the idea of values -- what's worthwhile or what's not. It is only one aspect of the human mind and brain. You could build into a program some abstract notions like, "complexity is better than simplicity", and derive from that the desirability of preserving complex ecosystems and preferring complex civilizations to simple ones. Most of morality concerns the experiences of beings that we assume to be conscious and experiencing the world the same we do in the relevant respects (more on that below). But essential to the very idea of morality is choice -- free will. If something happened that was beyond our control, we cannot be said to have moral responsibility for it.

Moral responsibility as we humans think of it requires free will. Free will requires consciousness. All three are fundamentally foreign to the scientific method and central to our conscious experience, and all seem foreign to science and inherent to our lived experience in exactly the same way.

The requirements do not run in the opposite direction. We can imagine conscious experience without free will -- we can imagine having no control over what we think about. It does however sound very alien to our own experience -- even if we were completely deprived of sensory input or the ability to influence the outside world in any way, we could still decide what to think about. We can also easily imagine free will without morality -- we can choose our actions based on anything at all. But moral responsibility requires the other two.

As a footnote, most of morality concerns the experiences of beings that we assume to be conscious. At the heart of reducing animal suffering is the idea that animals are conscious and experience suffering -- if they don't, then there is no obstacle to doing things to them that we would hate. When we hear them cry or whimper, our concern is that they are feeling the way we feel when we cry or whimper. On the other hand, if someone builds a very sophisticated robot that emulates an animal, then we congratulate the builder if it cries or whimpers when an animal would, but we don't think the robot is suffering. To the extent we feel some sympathy for HAL as Dave disassembles him in "2001: A Space Odyssey", it is because we assume HAL is truly conscious, as when he says "I can feel it". When it comes to human beings, we have a very elaborate sense of moral and immoral ways to treat each other, based primarily on assuming their conscious experience is just like ours. The common assumption that others experience the world as we do and that this guides our moral action is interesting, but not part of the main thrust of my argument.

Online privacy and targeted advertising

I have heard all the dire warnings about how corporations are gobbling up my personal information and know far more about me than I would like. I suppose it's true. I will sometimes go to the privacy settings for Facebook or Google or some other place and set them to be more restrictive. But then within a year or two they change it and I have to go back in and do it again, some different way. A person gets tired. I don't read privacy policies any more closely than I read user agreements when they install software. Does anyone? I could disable cookies, but cookies are actually very convenient in customizing my personal experience.

One reason I'm not upset enough to take vigorous action is that the reason they are doing this (as far as we know) is to more precisely target the advertising they give me to be more relevant. Well, if I have to look at advertising, surely it's better the more likely it is to be relevant. Studies show that people are susceptible to various devious tricks and are being manipulated by all advertising. But I figure that's my problem. (On those rare occasions I watch TV, I deliberately get up and do something else when the ads come on). I don't know how anyone could legislate the removal of subtle manipulation in advertising. Perhaps I should be upset because this same data could be used for more intrusive purposes if it got into the wrong hands. I guess I'm just not in practice taking that possibility all that seriously.

Four years ago I experienced the ultimate in targeted advertising. I was looking for a new small car, focusing on the Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit. I used Google search. As a result, I started getting advertising related to cars, and it continued after I had bought my Yaris. One picture showed me not just a Yaris, and not just one of the same color (blue) -- it was a picture of the actual car I had bought, which I could identify by the background of the photo showing the lot where I had first seen it. The advertising certainly was precisely targeted!

Go instantly when the light turns green

One part of the good, spiritual life is to slow down and "go placidly among the noise and the haste". When it comes to driving in congested areas, I think this is bad advice in certain respects.

A lot of the time, I find myself in traffic and fervently wishing that the traffic would move faster so I can get to my destination more quickly. Such is modern life. I do usually succeed in not getting very upset about delays.

Yet some drivers are relaxed in unhelpful ways. One example is delays in starting up when the light turns green. Some might figure selfishly that surely they will get through the light, even if their speed can affect how many people behind them will. In the modern era, it seems like some have used the time at the red light to do something on their phones, and take a precious few seconds to finish up. Some just let their attention wander. I feel that in congested conditions drivers should be ready to go instantly when the light turns green. We expect drivers to react instantly to dangerous situations when their car is moving, so why can't we expect them to react instantly to a green light? The more people who react instantly for purposes of traffic flow as well as safety, the faster everyone will get where they are going. And whatever your spiritual goals, most of us, most of the time, are actually in a hurry.

A related issue is pedestrian behavior. I often walk at a leisurely pace, and on most sidewalks that doesn't slow anyone else down. Sometimes it is time to cross the street at a crosswalk. Cars must stop for a pedestrian. Once they are stopped, I as a pedestrian have the right to cross in a leisurely fashion. Yet I usually hurry across, and I wish other people would as well. To me, the ultimate in this one small aspect of enlightenment is to walk slowly on the sidewalk, hurry across the crosswalk, and then immediately start walking more slowly again.

I think I've even observed a social custom. Some pedestrians hurry in a certain way, especially when they just start crossing, and I speculate this is a social signal indicating their willingness to do their part to help the drivers get going again quickly.

Go at a leisure pace (placidly) when it doesn't adversely affect others. Go quickly when being slow would slow others down, in a world where most people are in a hurry. Speed for the right reasons is consistent with placidity.

A confusing second concept of "standard time"

When I was young I was like everyone else taught the difference between standard time and daylight savings time. Clocks were set ahead an hour to initiate daylight savings time, and set back an hour when standard time resumed (as captured in the saying, "spring forward, fall back").

Recently I saw a reference to some program happening in the summer that started at 10am Eastern Standard Time. At first I thought they were mistaken and meant to say Eastern Daylight Time, but then I realized that they were instead adopting a new meaning for the word "standard". It simply meant "what everyone in the Eastern time zone means by 10am." They could have solved their problem by saying the event started at 10am Eastern Daylight Time. But this solution is not available when you have an event which starts at the same time year-round. It sounds silly to say, "10am Eastern Daylight Time when we are on Daylight Time, and 10am Eastern Standard Time when we are on Standard Time".

When time zone does not need to be specified, the natural and obvious solution is to simply omit "Standard" and "Daylight" entirely. We can just say "10am" and there is no confusion.

But if you also need to specify the time zone, it is much less common to say "Eastern Time". We have an itch to fill that in as "Eastern Standard Time" or "Eastern Daylight Time". Most web sites (<one example>) have no generic word. The brief definition <here> is "The standard time in a zone including the eastern states of the US and parts of Canada" where the word "standard" is overloaded to mean "typical". <Wikipedia doesn't have a solution for this problem>  either.

"Standard time" came from the 19th century idea of dividing the world up from East to West in vertical stripes so that in Georgia it's 8am, but just over the line in Alabama it's 7am. It arose from the needs of railroads, the first time that people were moving long distances rapidly and cared about exactly when they arrived and left. Before standard time every place was on its own solar time, where noon is when the sun is highest. So in the course of a day "noon" would ripple across the countryside one town at a time. But that was very confusing for people using railroads running east and west. With standard time, noon comes at one instant to the entire Eastern time zone, and then in another instant it comes to the entire Central time zone.

"Daylight time" was motivated in part by economic benefits (real or imagined). But the basic insight is that people like daylight, and in the summer some of it is happening between 5am and 6am when everyone is asleep. With daylight savings time, that extra hour of daylight is shifted to the evening when people are awake.

So we have one word "standard" capturing the idea of time zones, and now the need arises for another one capturing the idea of "whichever of daylight versus standard time is currently in effect". "Usual", "Customary", and "Common" would be possibilities, but none feels right. The minimalist idea is to just get used to talking about Eastern Time, Central Time, Mountain Time, and Pacific Time. But these are uncomfortably short and lack a certain official ring to them. As best I can tell, this is a problem without a single emerging solution.

I sometimes solve the problem by saying I'm on New York time. Everyone in the world knows what that means approximately and can easily look up what it means precisely. I suppose other equivalents would be Chicago time, Denver time, and Los Angeles time. It's true that people in Europe may not know what time zone Denver is in -- but they can easily look it up on the web.

My dim view of "they" as singular

In my post on <polling and interrupts> I argued for fair treatment and compassion for all minorities, but suggested that we should deal with the very small minorities when they come into our lives and do not need to make space for them in our minds until they do.

One <radical suggestion> was for everyone to start using the singular "they". But short of that, there is also a movement afoot to say that people should be able to tell us that they wish to be referred to as "they" instead of "he" or "she" to reflect the fact that they are very uncomfortable being forced into a binary gender decision.

Let's give some history on other issues around personal pronouns. Starting in the 1970s, more and more people felt we should no longer refer to a generic person of indeterminate gender as "he", which had been the custom in English (and just about every other language, as far as I know). Some words in a language are ambiguous and we can tell from context which sense is intended. But here it was often hard to tell, and it really did support the idea that a standard ordinary human being was a male, and females were this other, special case.

There were various solutions. "It" was a non-starter because it implied non-human. Another was to use a new pronoun such as "ze". This didn't work because it is very hard to change language in such a fundamental way. Another was to use "they" in a singular sense, though grammatically plural. We do often see "If a person talks to you, they are being friendly", but it makes many people uncomfortable and just doesn't work so well in many circumstances.

So the solution we adopted was to use "he and she", an effort which has been largely successful. "He" really does imply a male these days, and some variant of "he and she" is used when the gender isn't clear. This was a change that benefited fully half of humankind (and arguably benefited all of us).

More recently (notably the last ten years or so) trans people have become much more prominent. The typical case involves someone who was assigned a sex at birth but has since decided that they identify as the opposite sex. They make no demands on the English language, but request that we use the pronouns that match their new gender identity, even if they look more like the one they were assigned at birth. This does not require changing the language, just moving a person into the other gender category for linguistic purposes.

Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying that "Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent". It is in the same spirit as a <dignity culture>. "All citizens are assumed to have a sense of dignity and self-restraint, and everyone is expected to, at least at first, give the benefit of the doubt to a disputant to see if a conflict can be resolved peacefully." You expect to take some insults and insensitive remarks and let them roll off your back. If your gender identity is not 100% clear, a stranger using either set of pronouns should be tolerated. If your relationship with them will be more than casual, you can "interrupt" them and tell them which pronouns you would prefer, and they should try to honor your request.

Now non-binary people have come along who dislike both "he" and "she". Using "he or she" doesn't work with an individual person, since the point is that neither word applies. Some hate these pronouns so much that in their interruption they ask -- sometimes insist -- that we refer to them using "they" as a singular. (I do not know what is objectionable about plural "they" -- maybe someone will enlighten me). This requires changing the language as much as use of a new set of pronouns such as "ze" would, and just feels very unnatural to lots of people. One reaction in line with dignity culture would be for a non-binary person to welcome both sets of pronouns as opposed to neither. Each set reflects a part of such a person even if it doesn't reflect all of the person.

Humans are an overwhelmingly binary species when it comes to gender. Until the idea of non-binary identity became fashionable in the past ten-odd years, it's a good guess that 99.9% of people were happy to identify as one gender or the other.

One theory for the recent surge in non-binary identity is that such people have always been present and suffering, and are finally free to break free of the shackles of binary identity and tell us who they truly are. Another is that in our rush to welcome enthusiastically all minorities, the intersectionalist is happy to identify this new minority, honor them, and look at themselves and even feel virtuous if they could consider themselves non-binary too.

It's unclear how many people will genuinely, truly consider themselves non-binary after the dust settles. My hunch is it will remain well under one percent. It is very hard to change language. A mighty effort was required to get us to adopt "he and she" for a generic person. The preferences of a tiny group of non-binary people won't provide enough impetus for a genuine change.

A somewhat parallel case concerns speakers of other languages whose names English speakers always mispronounce. When we are interrupted by someone in that position who offers us a better pronunciation, we can try to use it. My rule would be that we should try to use whatever they tell us that is consistent with the sound rules of English, but we can't be expected to use finer distinctions that are not part of our language. We will not distinguish the two "k" sounds in Arabic. We will not use click sounds of the sort found in Xhosa. Using the proper tone for a tone language like Chinese will likely be very difficult. Dignity culture requires those with such names to put up with our best effort.

Perhaps the "singular they" is an intermediate case. Some people will be able to use it easily in speech. Others will manage it writing. That's fine with me. Some will simply refuse to do it because their commitment to the language is stronger than some individual's desire to change it. That's also fine with me.

Friendly nativism

On the whole, I most enjoy spending time with people like me. That includes introverts, those who are highly educated, those who enjoy wry humor, word play, and complicated games and puzzles. It includes atheists and agnostics. It includes those whose instincts are broadly leftist. It includes those who are willing to take unpopular positions if that's where the evidence leads them. I feel a bond with those who were also born in the 1950s and grew up with experiences similar to mine. It includes those born in America who are native speakers of English.

Of course I do spend time with others, and try my best to respect them and find the common ground we share. But I don't feel bad if I spend time mostly with those who I share many attributes with. Similarly, I'd slightly prefer it when the people I meet casually in day-to-day life also share some of those attributes. The more they share the better.

I went to Swarthmore College (as did my daughters and my ex-wife). Once I was in a group of six where we realized we had all gone to Swarthmore, a rather high-end private college. This didn't lead us to reminisce about the place or talk about its superiority. But the tone changed. We could raise subtle ideas that we might not with a more mixed group lest they think we were trying to show off, or would misunderstand, or if the ideas would require us to make a lengthy explanation.

So then we come to immigration. I find many aspects of it morally difficult, especially how to treat long-time illegal immigrants and how to make decisions about refugees seeking asylum. Illegal immigrants do work that few native-born people are willing to do but also suppress wages. But my point today pertains to one specific aspect of this: Among those who simply want to move here, is there a role for preferring people from some places as opposed to others? My suggestion is that in a country that is predominantly descended from Europeans, we might reasonably give preference to Europeans over those from other places. This is the spirit of a <1924 law>:

"The Immigration Act of 1924 limits the number of immigrants allowed into the United States yearly through nationality quotas. Under the new quota system, the United States issues immigration visas to 2 percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States at the 1890 census. The law favors immigration from Northern and Western European countries. Just three countries, Great Britain, Ireland and Germany account for 70 percent of all available visas. Immigration from Southern, Central and Eastern Europe was limited. The Act completely excludes immigrants from Asia, aside from the Philippines, then an American colony."

In 1965 this ends, and the same article says "President Lyndon B. Johnson, called the old immigration system “un-American,” and said the new bill would correct a “cruel and enduring wrong in the conduct of the American Nation.” "

I'm not sure why.

In 1965, "the quota system is replaced with a seven-category preference system emphasizing family reunification and skilled immigrants." Those are also reasonable criteria for an immigration system. Reunifying families could in theory keep the same ethnic mix, except that people of some ethnicities are far more interested in getting to the US based on family reunification than others.

What would immigration look like if we applied moral considerations distinct from political realities? One possibility is to simply allow open borders. Another would be a giant lottery, where all human beings (or family groups) would have an equal chance of admission regardless of where they came from. Neither of those resembles our current system very much, nor would I think most people would favor them, especially the first.

For comparison, consider Japan. Japan allows very little immigration. At some times it has favored those of Japanese heritage in the diaspora who sought to return to Japan. Now I don't know whether lots of Japanese actively hate foreigners (they do have a fierce nationalism in their past, on display before and during World War II). But certainly one possible modern position is that Japanese aren't superior to others, it's just that Japan is a place where Japanese live. Looking at the situation from afar, this doesn't bother me.

Is the US different because we are a nation of immigrants? I don't think so. European immigrants did displace Native Americans, something that from a modern perspective had no moral justification. But however we got here, America today has a certain mix of people of different backgrounds, and it makes sense that different groups would favor immigration by people like them. But Europeans would likely prevail in the political process. The 2 percent rule in the 1924 law allowed some measure of equity.

In my mind how we treat people who are in the US who are of different backgrounds is a very different question. I feel strongly that all deserve respect, none deserve discrimination in employment, housing or anything else. It is completely consistent with approving more would-be immigrants from some places over others.

A desire for people to live with "people like them" can express itself in many forms. The most extreme is ethnic cleansing, removing those from an disfavored group from where they currently live. Another is hostility and discrimination against the disfavored group, perhaps encouraging them to leave. A third is restricting those who you invite to immigrate to the community. The first two seem highly repugnant, but the third seems to me entirely defensible.

I don't see any real danger of a slippery slope. In practical terms, those Americans who are worried about immigrants might be more inclined to treat well the people who are here if they didn't have this perception that the new arrivals were taking over or going to overwhelm them with numbers.

I don't feel strongly about this. Maybe there are counterarguments I'm not considering. I will continue to argue strongly for non-discrimination against all Americans, however they got here. But I don't see anything morally problematic about quotas based on ethnicity.

The other Bart is selfish and lazy

The closest I came to answering the Big Questions was in <this post>:

'The best answer to, "What should I do with my life?" is to pick something, decide that it's what's important, make it your own, and work for it. In the absence of objective morality, there is no argument to be made as to why any choice you make would be fundamentally, profoundly right or wrong.'

In line with that approach, I seek to do good in the world, mostly online, and in this blog tell the truth as I see it, hoping it might influence some people positively.

There is another side to me, however, that sees things differently. It is aware that I am only on this earth a brief while, and the fact I am conscious at any given moment is a sort of miracle. In the absence of any meaning or compelling goals, I seek to avoid pain, try to be comfortable, and seek pleasure. I feel no very close connection to any other individual people. Puzzles and solitaire computer games are frequent diversions, as are YouTube videos of things I find interesting, not all of them G rated. I don't lie, cheat, or steal, though I don't have any profound justification for those choices -- it's just that those things would make me feel bad.

I sometimes muse about the possibility of an evangelical organization of nihilists, enduring any hardship to convince others that life has no meaning. It makes me smile because, well, why would you endure hardship for something with no value? Or, to quote the immortal Tom Lehrer approximately (you think I'm going to look it up, in this frame of mind?) "Like so many modern philosophers, he was intent on giving advice to people who were happier than he was." Perhaps it preceded, "Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it."

This perspective oscillates with the more noble one that is the source of all these blog posts, much as <some optical illusions> leave our visual system switching back and forth between two interpretations of an ambiguous figure.

I mention this for the sake of honesty, and perhaps for the benefit of others who are in this state sometimes, so they might feel less alone.

I have at times suffered from deep depression, but I consider that sort of negative experience of life to be quite different. Part of it was probably just plain old neurochemistry. The other, cognitive part was distress experienced within a clear set of goals and values -- things I held to be important, and the depression was largely based on how my life was not in line with those goals and values.

Perhaps the good life is picking some one thing that is important and devoting oneself to it completely. But for some of us there are doubts and competing perspectives about what is good and what is worth effort.

Implications of Evo Psych for tribal loyalties

There are many evolutionary tendencies that do not cause discomfort. It's uncontroversial that we like eating and sex, and seek to avoid pain, snakes, spiders and heights.

An example with ambiguous implications is tribal loyalty. One example is rooting for the local sports franchise. The story I heard is that in some Texas towns, the high school football rivalry is a source of intense interest, and most adults in a given community will be delighted for weeks if their team wins the big game, and dejected for weeks if it loses. Pro football engages far more people in a national pattern. Here is a map of <NFL loyalties>. I don't hear many people being especially troubled by these loyalties. If forced to think about it, they recognize that the coaches and players are hired help with no geographic ties to the area who may be traded away at any time. One stark perspective is that fans are actually rooting for the uniform -- for laundry. I am susceptible myself, but also not comfortable with it. Maybe it's just a harmless diversion, but along with rooting for the local team goes rooting against the rivals. "Yankees suck!" is not a sentiment in line with the values most of us would like to live by.

Origins? In our hunter-gatherer environment of evolution, raids back and forth were sometimes violent. It was in everyone's interest to be strongly committed to the success of their own "people" (perhaps encompassing multiple bands) and merciless to the enemy. Sometimes women were stolen, but we can speculate that when such a woman started bearing children, it was in her genetic interest to switch loyalty to the new band.

Another manifestation of this tendency is our commitment to people of our own race, ethnicity, social class, religion and nationality. Today people of good will are motivated to accept others who are different as part of our emerging multicultural world. We can just dismiss commitment to "our own" as bigotry with no redeeming qualities, but it deserves more respect than that. In this case our goals might be better served if we recognize and honor this tendency within ourselves and then set it aside to accept those who are not like us and treat them with respect. If the tribal tendency itself is shamed and derided, it will fester uneasily.

It is worth a long pause to appreciate that a world with a single culture is an especially rewarding one. It is especially comfortable when everyone speaks the same language, has the same religion, looks the same, and shares a host of values down to the level of what is polite and impolite. At its best, it does not involve putting down others; they are simply absent and irrelevant. In today's world we have to give that up as groups mix more and more, but we are giving up something that was properly experienced as positive.

I argued that with no objective morality, we must choose what is important to us and <make it our own>. To the extent a person lives in a homogeneous society, what's important is decided without any need for questioning or even awareness that things could be different. The illusion of meaning is intact.

The ease with which our loyalty to our band was extended to our city, region, or nation is remarkable. We haven't had time to separately evolve a commitment to a nation of millions of people, but people feel it strongly and easily. Overcoming it to become a citizen of the world in our gut as well as with our mind is no small thing.

How Evo Psych Can Improve Your Perspective on Sexual Issues

Suppose you were to decide I was right about everything I've said about evo psych. What would the implications be? I have argued that since "is" and "ought" should be clearly separated, there is absolutely no message about the desirability of changing society in line with goals we choose. Evo psych may predict that it will be difficult, but it never says we should not try. Facts about how difficult something may be should bear on how much effort we put into any particular transformation, but in some cases it's worth it anyway. Any given evo psych story might be wrong, and one way to test it is to try to change society to be in line with our modern values.

A clear example is the male tendency towards violence (on average greater than females). Everyone favors reducing violence towards others. We teach our children to channel their angry feelings into nonviolent forms. Evo psych predicts we have to do this anew for every generation of children, and boys will struggle with it more, but it is clearly worth it.

But what can evo psych do for you in your own personal life?

Several models of psychotherapy propose that our minds have separate components. Freud started it with his id, ego, and superego. For other examples, <Transactional Analysis>, while now dated, gave central place to parent, child and adult as parts of our psyche. More recently, the <Internal Family Systems Model> posits managers, firefighters, exiles, and the self. One way these approaches help is to separate some dysfunctional feelings and behavioral tendencies into an identifiable unit, respect it on its own terms, but strive to let other healthier parts govern your behavior instead.

Evo psych can be helpful in the same way. Sometimes we can identify tendencies in ourselves we are not so proud of as products of evolution, and we could package them up as components of ourselves. One advantage is that we can forgive ourselves for having such tendencies and honor them as part of our human heritage. We can skip trying to find the cause of such tendencies in our childhood, and not expect to remove them from ourselves root and branch. We can expect to feel them arise again and again. Instead, we choose to guide our behavior by the better values we have chosen.

There are a great many examples, many concerning sex. Middle-aged men will notice women in their 20s and feel a very strong attraction -- and sometimes leave their wives for a younger one. Women may feel strongly drawn to rich, muscled men in sports cars who treat other people badly. Happily married women may feel so strongly attracted to some other men they might engage in an affair. Men may notice a strong desire to have sex with women despite ambiguous consent. Women might feel a strong pull to not give their baby up for adoption even though they decided in advance that would be best for everyone. Men who really only want to have sex when their partners also really want it may nonetheless notice an ongoing strong desire to have sex more often.

We can accept any such tendency we find, recognize it as adaptive in the environment we evolved in, recognize it as not adaptive today, and then commit ourselves to living according to the modern values our best selves have adopted.

In the above examples we keep our evolutionary tendencies in check and refrain from actions our best selves would regret. But it could also lead to action. Women might decide that prostitution is a good choice for them, recognizing their innate tendency to feel bad about that and choosing to set it aside.

There is also the matter of interpreting other people's bad behavior or tendencies as rooted in their innate tendencies rather than evil intentions. Middle-aged women often notice their husbands looking at younger women. They could interpret it as their still being under the sway of an unjust patriarchal system or a pathetic attempt to deny that they are themselves getting older. They could more accurately interpret it as part of the way all men are wired -- a desire for sex with fertile women. Accepting the tendency (maybe even joking about it pleasantly) while expecting the men to stay true to them might be part of more intimacy in the marriage. Men might feel annoyed that their wives are not interested in sex anywhere near as often as they are. They are willing to do anything sexually the woman wants and have made it clear it would mean a lot to them; what's the problem? They should understand that women are wired to care deeply about when they have sex in a way that goes beyond rational considerations.

There is a misguided feminist attitude that takes this tendency to care deeply about the exact circumstances of sexual encounters and sets it up as an object of worship. <This article> takes the extraordinary position that if a man makes clear he wants any relationship to be a sexual one (a common enough position) and a woman goes along but later regrets it, she was coerced and possibly raped. The standard assumption of most monogamous couples is that neither will seek sex outside, but that they will have sex inside the relationship with reasonable frequency. Affirmative consent means that a man should always respect a woman's desires. However, if the woman is hardly ever interested in sex, that seems an entirely appropriate justification for him leaving the relationship in search of one that meets the standard. Throughout history couples have compromised in frequency of sexual relations. This feminist attitude seems to be that women should never compromise, and that any men who do not accept this new reality are, well, sexists. A likely result is a lot more men refusing to be in such relationships at all. What the analysis ignores is that most men are just wired to want sex a lot, and finding ways to accommodate that desire pretty often (though not on demand, of course) is part of compromising to make a relationship work. Thinking the man's desire for frequent sex is pathological is not a good starting point.

If a woman is raped, she might think about the motivation of the man who raped her. Feminist theory would suggest that he wanted to show his dominance over her, humiliate her, and hurt her. Evo psych would suggest that a big part of his motivation, ultimately, was a desire to father a child. There is absolutely no excuse for his action, but would a different perspective on his motivation make it easier to heal? It might be worth considering. Maybe the answer is a resounding "no", but it's for each person to decide on their own.

A lot of the evo psych tendencies I have discussed are differences between the sexes. Sex is like no other division between people. Women have sons and men have daughters, and we are intimately intertwined. Evo psych predicts differences in behavior between the sexes because of differing strategies for reproductive success. We see a great deal of it in the animal world, and evo psych has a good story to tell about many human differences as well.

Prostitution

I argued that <women are wired by evolution to hate rape>. The main reason is that they care deeply about who fathers their children and when. A woman's ideal is choosing to have sex exactly when and with whomever she chooses. This will typically be with a husband who agrees to support her and any resulting children. (Taking in mind that <women cheat sometimes>, she also might choose a secret sexual encounter in search of better genes for her children.) Also note that this woman's ideal is without dispute the only possible ethical position according to modern values.

People may marry for love these days in the West, but in other places and in earlier times, marriage was itself an economic arrangement. The woman grants a man the exclusive right to father her children and in return he supports her and those children. In the West, when love fails and divorce happens, child support reinstates this explicitly economic relationship.

An economic relationship between sex and resources introduces the concept of prostitution. This is on one end of a spectrum that goes down from economic marriage through mistresses and "kept women" to females who informally trade sex for various favors, and then to the explicitly commercial relationships of one-time sex for cash.

I want to set aside from this continuum sexual slavery, where women are forced into prostitution and would face reprisals if they left or perhaps cannot leave at all. That is rape.

The market for male prostitutes is very limited, while the market for female prostitutes is substantial. Here is a controversial claim: this situation is a way that society favors females over males. Most young females have the option to visit that continuum of prostitution at some point, though they do not need to take it. Very few males have the option.

Are there related, compensating advantages to being male? One is that a man can drift from place to place or even be homeless with very little risk of rape. That is a serious disadvantage of being female. In line with my philosophy of recognizing qualitative differences without needing to fit them into a war of the sexes, we can recognize both as valid, even if the downside of possible rape is bigger.

But if a woman remains within her community, that risk of rape is relatively low. Trading sex for support or protection is an option a woman has. A desperately poor woman could opt for prostitution, while a desperately poor man starves.

We can also put prostitution on a continuum along which female agency increases. Some might choose it given grim economic circumstances with the competing opportunities very limited. Some choose it because although they can get by OK, they can earn significant income. Eliot Spitzer's prostitutes would seem to fit that pattern. One young woman reportedly earned her semester's college tuition in just a few sessions.

If you started with a "blank slate" mentality, you could imagine women saying to themselves that when done right sex is safe regarding STIs and contraception, physically pleasant, and it is a natural human act. As long as it pays much better than most other jobs, it should be an attractive choice. And yet the same forces that make women hate rape will make them tend to hate prostitution. The woman's goal a wired by evolution is lifelong support from a man. Even $500 per hour is not on the same scale when there is no guarantee it will go on indefinitely. Her modern self might know that she is safe from pregnancy and STIs, but it does not affect her gut-level feelings that evolution has endowed her with.

It has also been proposed that in society, the bulk of women have a strong incentive to discourage their sisters from prostitution -- or to at least keep the price high. (They have an even stronger incentive to discourage women who offer sex freely.) If the only way a man can get sex is to marry and support any resulting children, he is motivated to do so. If he can get sex for a reasonable price and retain his independence, he might consider that a better deal. The "women's union" wants to curtail that option as much as possible. There is an internal logic to this story, but it seems more speculative than most evo psych. It might be a cultural adaptation.

Evolutionary tendencies are not destiny. Sometimes people can overcome them. When women who are not desperate overcome their own instincts against prostitution, and explicitly reject condemnation by society (mostly other women), it can affect society, as it takes only a small number of prostitutes to alter the sexual "market". There is a divide today within the feminist movement between those who support sex workers and those who do not. I believe the ethical thing to do is to support them in choosing their own personal destiny. Without getting into detailed policy options, I believe that legal and regulated prostitution is much better than total prohibition. If feminists want to work in parallel to reduce prostitution by way of trying to reduce the demand for it (to change men's behavior), they can.

Changing men's minds seems like a tall order. I think most men much prefer sex with women who have an intrinsic interest in it. According to <this chart>, at most 1 in 5 men in the US and northern Europe visit a prostitute even once. Those countries are rich enough that you figure most men aren't deterred by the price if they really want it. Perhaps those men do objectify women's bodies, but at 20% I would say it is a relatively minor problem. If part of support for sex workers extends to encouraging men to purchase their services, that's a slant I have never heard. But it's worth reflecting that reducing demand for prostitution reduces women's choices. Perhaps we should have a stronger safety net so fewer women are desperate, and I would support that (for men and women alike), but I can't see linking the two issues.

To summarize the effect of natural selection on prostitution, it is not at all surprising that most women would dislike the prospect and those who do enter it usually only do so when they are truly desperate or when they can command a very good price.

Limit news coverage of mass shootings

Overall gun deaths and mass shootings have very little to do with each other. I personally would favor stronger gun laws -- but not based on mass shooting incidents.

<This graphic> from 538.com describes the situation quite well.

Mass shootings are a fraction of one slender column in this big array of gun deaths. To be fair, if we restricted our attention to "clearly unjust gun deaths" then it would be a somewhat bigger piece. Two-thirds of the gun deaths are suicides. It's a good guess that a majority of the deaths from police shooting civilians are justified -- armed people who were threatening the police or others. And not all but many of the young men killed by guns are in gangs and have signed up for this possibility by joining gangs.

But with all that removed, and allowing for a few more mass deaths since 2016, it's still maybe 2% of the total for a year? The way to address the other 98% as well as that 2% might be with gun ownership restrictions. But the world's outrage is all focused on the 2%.

What we have is a media phenomenon. They are irresistibly drawn to dramatic stories of this kind, even though they will leave unreported a thousand simple one-person gun homicides. The media are drawn to it because people are drawn to watch the coverage. Crucially, a few young men in an antisocial frame of mind are drawn to watch the coverage too and inspired to get their brief moment of fame in the same way. It is a cycle that feeds on itself.

My claim is that we as a society aren't actually concerned about the number of people killed, we are concerned about the news stories. If there were fewer news stories we would be happier. We might not think that, but that's how we behave.

The way to reduce these reports (and ultimately, the violence itself, hopefully) is through the coverage and consumption of news, not the availability of guns. If we ignored issues of press freedom, we could pass a law limiting the coverage to bare bones facts and no sensationalism. We could prohibit publication of any images, still or video, as well as sensational text. Instead, just a text account of the location of the crime, number and names of victims. We seem able to suppress identities and lurid details for sexual abuse victims, maybe we could harness some of the same energy? Perhaps we could make such images illegal as we do with child pornography. Without the oxygen of publicity, such crimes would start declining.

That might be a hard sell, and press freedom really is worth a lot. But citizens could unite in expressing their opposition to news outlets carrying sensational coverage and then organize boycotts of the advertisers. Are people willing to turn the spotlight back on themselves for the role they play in these shootings? Giving ratings numbers to outlets that cover these stories sensationally is a clear cause, and a dip in ratings is the way to affect the behavior of news organizations.

Of course, with a video camera in every phone today and the viral video phenomenon, an end run around any such measures is in place. Given that, here's the hard truth about the the way to get a reduction in such news reports. It will happen if they become common enough that they're not interesting news any more. Commentators will passionately tell us that if we ever get used to such things then we're losing our very humanity. But that perspective is from within the bubble of the news mentality. If such incidents became common enough, then the news coverage would go down. The actual murder rate might go up a little, but even if it went up 50% that would be from 2% to 3% of the total, and it still doesn't mean much when the other 97% go unaddressed. And the actual good news: the rate also might go down again, as once the phenomenon is common enough to not be news, fewer perps would be motivated by the news and it could decrease without triggering the opposite reaction of "it's news again".

Have we not lost our humanity in our indifference to the other 97% of clearly unjust gun homicides? Have we lost our humanity in not responding to the inability for ordinary working people to earn a living wage? For the unavailability of health insurance? And worst of all, for the climate change nightmare that is unfolding? Maybe we have, and should ignore sensational mass shootings and focus on those things instead.

The news is a seriously flawed tool if your goal is to decide how to improve the world.

We have a need for another "news" program -- maybe more an "olds" program. I might call it "Boring But Important".

I addressed these same basic issues over a decade ago in <two> <posts> that I think are still entirely valid.