Captain Obvious

I must admit I would have never expected someone to argue with me that doing the right thing is always the right thing to do. It never goes out of style. Sure, it can be harder at times than going along with the consensus but standing on principles always seemed to me the higher calling in life. As a kid I was called “goody two shoes” for this position.

What troubles me, according to modern thought, is that it now appears right and wrong are subjective and therefore depend upon personal beliefs and cultural norms. Could this explain why many politicians will privately admit that cheating to achieve their political goals is appropriate.

The branch of philosophy called ethics addresses this question. Let’s focus on just one: are moral truths objective or subjective? In other words, are moral truths (like “don’t cheat” and “don’t steal”) objectively true and thus true independently of what our society says? Or are they subjective and thus relative to what our society says?

Some recent research indicates that about 95% of students answered that moral truths are subjective. One might be tempted to think that this is a generational phenomenon: perhaps a millennial thing, but it is much more widespread.

Another possibility of thinking that morality is subjective could be rooted in some sort of intellectual humility. Perhaps people understand those who disagree morally need to be listened to and given intellectual room so that there is no tone of superiority by those with whom they disagree.

However, one can argue that morality is purely logical, using the argument from common sense. If morality is subjective (and thus relative to society), then there is really nothing wrong with slavery. But slavery is wrong. Therefore, it follows by logic alone that morality is not subjective. This argument is short, but powerful. Intellectuals will now argue with me that you really need to define slavery, because many modern business models have elements of slavery in their design.

Secondly, one can use the argument from disagreement. Consider a simple example of subjectivity: taste. I think vanilla is better than chocolate. Chocolate is alright, but clearly not as good as vanilla! But ask yourself this: if we were to have an argument about which is better (chocolate or vanilla), would we really be disagreeing about an objective fact in the world? No. Clearly not. That’s because this whole dispute boils down to a matter of taste. And taste is subjective.

So here’s the argument. Analogously, if morality is subjective, then no two people could ever really disagree about a particular moral issue. But that’s ridiculous. Just turn on the news for a few seconds, and you’ll see people clearly disagreeing about moral issues! Therefore, it follows by logic alone that morality is not subjective. To suppose that morality is subjective flies in the face of common sense and leads to the totally implausible conclusion that we can never really morally disagree with one another.

Morality is objective. It is independent of us and independent of what society says. Therefore, and consequentially, doing the right thing should never go out of style!  Plus, if we believe AI is going to be the basis of future decisions, how can we expect the best for society if we can’t agree now on what is right?

To answer the question posed in the title of this blog, clearly and sadly, yes.

As of Tuesday, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump made their final pitches for victory.  Now, as Americans from coast-to-coast cast ballots, polls showed a razor-close election likely to come down to seven top battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona.  We still don’t know the outcome …

This past year of nonstop political nonsense on both sides of the isle has convinced me that Americans failed math … almost everyone. Nobody understands what the average of anything means. They don’t understand the most likely events, nor do they understand the importance of the “tails” of the distribution … things that are not “likely,” but still happen.

Even when I tell the story of our timeshare in Cancun that was hit by Hurricane Gilbert the year after we bought it. We were feeling pretty good that hurricanes don’t hit that part of Mexico because the salesperson properly quoted that “Cancun had not been hit by a hurricane in 37 years.” At the time, I viewed that with some level of comfort, but in retrospect I should have assumed “we are due,” and would have been correct.

No one seems to appreciate the risk of using numbers to make certain types of decisions. The pre-election polls always indicated the country was about evenly divided between republicans and democrats … and that my friends is a important part of our democracy in that it can create checks and balances on just about everything in our lives. Conservatives like myself have been terribly concerned that the progressives’ rightful leanings need to be considered, but should flatly be denied in areas that affect our public safety.

Therefore, I firmly disagreed with the defunding the police and the idea that some jobs just need diversity in their constituent base other than excellence in talents in abilities. Go ahead and try to rebalance areas where public safety isn’t critical to experiment with new ideas, but please leave pilots, physicians, engineers and others who must have excellence in their abilities alone to properly execute their jobs.

What truly surprises me is the complete lack of appreciation for averages and the distribution of outcomes underlying those averages. The average seldom represents very many people. There are about equal numbers of males and females, but relatively few can be defined as an average … although we seem to be obsessed with these deviants in the mathematical distribution.

No, all too many today will want to quarrel with me on my last label about people who can’t quite decide whether they are male or female because some progressive thinkers now want to offer these deviants from the normal distribution their special spot in the sun.

Yes, these individuals have been marginalized in the past and been the target of hate, but I might remind everyone that I grew up with that kind of hate because I was a geek … a nerd. Our son was bullied by the quarterback of his high school’s football team … so everyone looked the other way … because on average, winning the football games mattered more than doing the right thing.

Averages work well to understand the risks at things like gambling where the odds are useful to predict the likely outcome of repeated bets on a certain strategy. Yet, while the odds are clearly against everyone, since it is a business and the “house” has to make money on average, people repeatedly flock to this activity that is just stupid because of the opportunity and thrill of winning occasionally.

Perhaps that is the summary. Everyone seems to be looking for the adrenaline rush of that occasional win rather than playing a game where the odds are stacked against us. Maybe the thing we call our democracy is nothing more than a game of craps where we just cheer wildly when we win and then keep betting in the hope our horse will come in.

It is funny how we characterize each other to make ourselves feel better. The optimist says the glass is half full and the pessimist says it is half empty. We engineers feel righteous in reminding everyone that there appears to be twice as much glass as we really need.

We are no longer viewing news.  It is mostly views … personal viewpoints and opinions, reflecting personal bias.  It is now indistinguishable from propaganda.  It is so lopsided and ludicrous that even the news media themselves are aghast.

If you check the definition of propaganda, you will find it is defined as biased to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.  While it may be satisfying to some, it does permanent damage to society.  The consequential loss of trust is going to haunt journalism for decades.  It doesn’t take much to destroy trust, and they have proven themselves untrustworthy.

Just watch any of the three major network TV news programs for the following recipe:  Report several positives about the Democratic candidate with the best images they have from a recent event, shift to a gloomy tone to spin up something negative about the Republican.  Include adverbs to what the Republican said, like “falsely” or “unsupported.” 

What makes me especially concerned is that the scientific community has similarly lost their moral compass.  The phrase “follow the money” is always a good guideline, but the willingness to lie to get people to do things crosses a line in my mind and heart.  Yes, I understand the “fake it till you make it” bias in Silicon Valley, but the underlying ethic should still be that you don’t overpromise.  I have already blogged about this so I will let this rest.

I grew up with warnings that some things would stunt my growth, which of course were either “old wives’ tales” or simply ignorant beliefs at the time.  Religious leaders were guilty of using fear tactics to keep people loyal and obedient.  Postmodern critical thinkers don’t accept the fires of hell or eternal damnation.  Religious leaders haven’t yet come up with a new twist on the idea.  So, they are resorting to performances rather than true worship.

Who doesn’t like a good concert?  Recent party rallies prove that point, and the natural backlash when celebrities show for token time slots and then bolt. Bait-and-switch is far from a new idea, but I am sensing many who were party loyal are worn out by it all.

Perhaps this is all a result of the proliferation of media all seeking their share of our minds.  We have become numb, cynical, and distrusting.  We are tired and suspicious of just about everyone and everything.  But most of us can detect propaganda, and we resent it.

We all agree we need to reset the conversation.  Personally, I want apologies as part of that. 

We all realize the world we live in is driven by political correctness and political expediency. Hard decisions requiring sacrifice are simply not on our political agendas, community agendas nor certainly in our national priorities. The prevailing mantra is that we will solve the world’s problems using intellect, our collective wealth, and by banning fossil fuels, which no knowledgeable energy professional will openly agree with. No one seems to want to pay any attention to the elephants in the room screaming we can’t get there with continual and expanding growth in consumption.

Now we hear that AI is going to solve problems that have eluded the greatest minds for decades including how to solve the footprint civilization has on the planet. Sure, we will hear from the magic AI code that microgrids, micro houses, and micro cars are important ideas, but the code, if honest and politically insensitive is going to produce this result:

“The human species is on an unsustainable and irresponsible quest to provide endless uses of raw materials and energy to sustain irresponsible goals that everyone on the planet must come up to the modern standard of living of the major cultures on the planet. It is politically unacceptable to face the options that truly solve this problem, so the only near-term answer seems to be to continue to delude the citizens of the world that there is such a solution without restraint and sacrifice. Either limit the population of the world or limit consumption.”

Pundits claim the latest generation of AI tools can learn on their own and that this does raise the concern that they could start generating answers no mere mortals can understand. As a developer of AI tools for about 60 years, I will let you in on something. Code that supposedly learns on its own will undoubtedly start to produce answers that are politically unacceptable.

Just look at the recent shifts in European countries and even in the US about who can and should enter. Think about the shrinking populations of the supposedly smartest countries on the planet and where the growth in world population is coming from. Then, look at the list of atrocities committed by previous and current world leaders about how they want to solve these problems. Then, remember that all AI systems require “training sets” to give them the optimization logic of how to solve problems. All of history is now being coded into these AI algorithms. Do you really think AI is going to come up with something comfortable if and when asked to solve these problems?

Movies like Hunger Games, Ex Machina, Her, and a host of others will look like child’s play if AI is let loose to decide what we need to do because we as a society are not ready to hear we are on the wrong paths. We still have time, but not a lot of it.

An article in the New York Times by Nicholas Confessore about the struggles to implement DEI at the University of Michigan offered a rather stunning review of how superficially appealing notions like DEI have unintended consequences.

What went wrong at Michigan? One answer is that programs like Michigan’s are confused about whom — and what — D.E.I. is really for. The earliest versions were aimed at integrating Black students who began arriving on college campuses in larger numbers in the 1960s and 1970s. But in subsequent decades, as the Supreme Court whittled down the permissible scope of affirmative action programs, what began as a tool for racial justice turned into a program of educational enrichment: A core principle of D.E.I. now is that all students learn better in diverse environs.

That leaves D.E.I. programs less focused on the people they were originally conceived to help — and conflicted about what they are really trying to achieve. Schools like Michigan pay lip service to religious or political diversity, for example, but may do little to advance those goals. Along the way, they make ambitious commitments to racial diversity that prove difficult to achieve. As a result, many Black students at Michigan have grown cynical about the school’s promises and feel that D.E.I. has forgotten them.

Earlier in the article, the author points to something that struck me is at the core of much of society today.  Perhaps the DEI efforts have increased tensions rather than seeking understanding.  Some of that change reflects a growing willingness to challenge ugly behavior that might once have been tolerated. But people at Michigan also argued that the school’s D.E.I. efforts had fostered a culture of grievance. Everyday campus complaints and academic disagreements, professors and students said, were cast as crises of inclusion and harm, each demanding administrative intervention.

We must lower the temperature of our conversations.  There is way too much violence on campus and in our communities.  It seems that DEI has increased these temperatures rather than lowering them. 

I decided to dig a bit deeper and learned that a culture of grievance has been published in the paper on Microaggression and Moral Cultures by Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning published January 30,2014.  Here is a summary:

Campus activists and others might refer to slights of one’s ethnicity or other cultural characteristics as “microaggressions,” and they might use various forums to publicize them. Here we examine this phenomenon by drawing from Donald Black’s theories of conflict and from cross-cultural studies of conflict and morality. We argue that this behavior resembles other conflict tactics in which the aggrieved actively seek the support of third parties as well as those that focus on oppression. We identify the social conditions associated with each feature, and we discuss how the rise of these conditions has led to large-scale moral change such as the emergence of a victimhood culture that is distinct from the honor cultures and dignity cultures of the past.

Victimhood vs. honor and dignity.  Boy those labels sound right in this context, so let’s look at each of them to see if we have more proof or clues to where the truth does lie.  So, with almost no effort I found this wonderful article: Honor, Dignity, Victim: A Tale of Three Moral Cultures by Kevin McCaffree with this summary:

“In contrast to honor cultures that expect victims to be strong and stern enough to defend themselves, and dignity cultures that expect victims to be calm and charitable when in a dispute or disagreement, victim cultures emphasize how complainants are emotionally or physically fragile, vulnerable, and weak. In order to have high status in a victim culture, one must perfect and dramatize a personal “narrative of suffering.”  Confidently espousing one’s own weakness, frailty, and suffering might seem, perhaps, dishonorable or shameful from an honor culture perspective, or gratuitous and self-absorbed from a dignity culture perspective.”

Why aren’t we having this conversation more generally?  Are we so driven by an ideologically liberal mindset that honor and dignity have been deemed wrong?

Seems so to me.