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Violence & Video Games, Yet Again.

Posted by on May 10, 2013 9 comments
Manhunt (video game)

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While there is an abundance of violence in the real world, there is also considerable focus on the virtual violence of video games. Interestingly, some people (such as the head of the NRA) blame real violence on the virtual violence of video games. The idea that art can corrupt people is nothing new and dates back at least to Plato’s discussion of the corrupting influence of art. While he was mainly worried about the corrupting influence of tragedy and comedy, he also raised concerns about violence and sex. These days we generally do not worry about the nefarious influence of tragedy and comedy, but there is considerable concern about violence.

While I am a gamer, I do have concerns about the possible influence of video games on actual behavior. For example, one of my published essays is on the distinction between virtual vice and virtual virtue and in this essay I raise concerns about the potential dangers of video games that are focused on vice. While I do have concerns about the impact of video games, there has been little in the way of significant evidence supporting the claim that video games have a meaningful role in causing real-world violence. However, such studies are fairly popular and generally get attention from the media.

The most recent study purports to show that teenage boys might become desensitized to violence because of extensive playing of video games. While some folks will take this study as showing a connection between video games and violence, it is well worth considering the details of the study in the context of causal reasoning involving populations.

When conducting a cause to effect experiment, one rather important factor is the size of experimental group (those exposed to the cause) and the control group (those not exposed to the cause). The smaller the number of subjects, the more likely that the difference between the groups is due to factors other than the (alleged) causal factor. There is also the concern with generalizing the results from the experiment to the whole population.

The experiment in question consisted of 30 boys (ages 13-15) in total. As a sample for determining a causal connection, the sample is too small for real confidence to be placed in the results. There is also the fact that the sample is far too small to support a generalization from the 30 boys to the general population of teenage boys. In fact, the experiment hardly seems worth conducting with such a small sample and is certainly not worth reporting on-except as an illustration of how research should not be conducted.

The researchers had the boys play a violent video game and a non-violent video game in the evening and compared the results. According to the researchers, those who played the violent video game had faster heart rates and lower sleep quality. They also reported “increased feelings of sadness.”  After playing the violent game, the boys  had greater stress and anxiety.

According to one researcher, “The violent game seems to have elicited more stress at bedtime in both groups, and it also seems as if the violent game in general caused some kind of exhaustion. However, the exhaustion didn’t seem to be of the kind that normally promotes good sleep, but rather as a stressful factor that can impair sleep quality.”

Being a veteran of violent video games, these results are consistent with my own experiences. I have found that if I play a combat game, be it a first person shooter, an MMO or a real time strategy game, too close to bedtime, I have trouble sleeping. Crudely put, I find that I am “keyed” up and if I am unable to “calm down” before trying to sleep, my sleep is generally not very restful. I really noticed this when I was raiding in WOW. A raid is a high stress situation (game stress, anyway) that requires hyper-vigilance and it takes time to “come down” from that. I have experienced the same thing with actual fighting (martial arts training, not random violence).  I’ve even experienced something comparable when I’ve been awoken by a big spider crawling on my face-I did not sleep quite so well after that. Graduate school, as might be imagined, put me into this state of poor sleep for about five years.

In general, then, it makes sense that violent video games would have this effect-which is why it is not a good idea to game up until bed time if you want to get a good night’s sleep. Of course, it is a generally a good idea to relax about an hour before bedtime-don’t check email, don’t get on Facebook, don’t do work and so on.

While not playing games before bedtime is a good idea, the question remains as to how these findings connect to violence and video games. According to the researchers, the differences between the two groups “suggest that frequent exposure to violent video games may have a desensitizing effect.”

Laying aside the problem that the sample is far too small to provide significant results that can be reliably extended to the general population of teenage boys, there is also the problem that there seems to be a rather large chasm between the observed behavior (anxiety and lower sleep quality) and being desensitized to violence. The researchers do note that the cause and effect relationship was not established and they did consider the possibility of reversed causation (that the video games are not causing these traits, but that boys with those traits are drawn to violent video games).  As such, the main impact of the study seems to be that it got media attention for the researchers. This would suggest another avenue of research: the corrupting influence of media attention on researching video games and violence.

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Lean In

Posted by on March 13, 2013 10 comments
DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 28JAN11 - Sheryl Sandberg, ...

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One of the wonderful things about being rich and famous (aside from being rich and famous) is that when you co-author a book, it tends to get a great deal of attention. This, of course, generally translates well into sales-thus resulting in even more wealth and fame.

The latest book of this sort is  Lean In, which was written by professional writer Nell Scovell and Sheryl Sandberg. As is the case with such works Sandberg (rather than Scovell) is the focus of attention.

Sandberg is pitching her book as ”sort of a feminist manifesto”  but has been attacked by women such as Maureen Dowd, Jodi Kantor, and Judith Shulevitz. It is also worth noting that she has also been supported by some well-known women as well, such as Rebecca Traister and Katha Pollitt.

To be honest, I do not plan to buy her book. I’ve read Wollstonecraft and other feminists who have, at least according to what I have read, do a much better job than Sandberg. Also, with a personal worth approaching $1 billion, I surely need my money more than her.

However, I will address a few points about her and the book within the limits of my knowledge of the material.

On the face of it, her situation shows quite clearly that feminism and equality have made vast strides since the time when Mary Wollstonecraft penned her famous Vindication of the Rights of Women. Wollstonecraft argued that women should be free to seek the career of their choice and that they should not be dependent on men for their support. Wollstonecraft was, of course, motivated by her view of virtue: as she saw it, the situation of women of her time was an impediment to the development of virtue in both men and women. For example, a woman who does not earn her money cannot exercise generosity-she can only give away her husband’s money. Sandberg has, in many ways, achieved what Wollstonecraft wanted: she is wealthy, has a career of her own, and is an influential person in society. She is also a mother and wife. Since I do not know her, I cannot comment on her moral standing in terms of virtue.

Given that Sandberg and so many other women are doing exceptional well, it might be tempting to consider her book somewhat pointless. After all, it would seem that feminism has achieved its goals. Of course, the obvious reply is that just as Obama being president does not prove the end of racism, Sandberg’s billion does not mark the end of sexism. After all, feminists are quick to present the usual claims about women making less than men and men still being the majority of those holding positions of power. In fact, a common approach these days is to note the accomplishments of women like Sandberg and then add a “but…” which is then followed by the usual suspects of institutional sexism.

Sandberg apparently deviates a bit from the script and has been attacked for this. The three main points raised against her as follows. First, she has been accused of being hard on women by focusing too much on what is generally referred to as “internalized sexism.” This is the notion that women behave in ways that the sexist would impose on them without being so imposed on externally. For example, a women who has internalized sexism would be passive during a discussion and yield to the more assertive males-even though there was no active attempt to suppress her (and she might even be actively encouraged to be more active and assertive).  Sandberg advocates that women need to take responsibility for their own success, to “lean in” as the book title says.  As might be suspected, she has been accused of blaming the victim by taking the view that women have considerable responsibility when it comes to their success or failure. This is, of course, in contrast with the stock view that women would succeed if only they were not victims of the patriarchy, which leads to the second point.

While Sandberg does make some mention of institutional sexism (that is, the imposition of sexism from the outside) she has been attacked for not being critical enough. Given her vast success, it does make some sense that she would not see the institutional sexism the same way as someone who perceives herself as  a victim. After all, it would be rather odd for an intelligent woman to sincerely rage against the patriarchy while gazing down at the vast majority of men from atop a pile of a billion dollars. Of course, the relevant issue is whether or not she has the matter right in terms of the obstacles women face.

There is, as many have argued, still elements of sexism in society and these do serve to impede the success of women. Of course, it could be noted that sexism is just one sub-machine in the vast machine of institutionalized inequality. Most people, men and women, will never achieve Sandberg’s success no matter how smart they are or how hard they work and part of the reason for this is institutionalized inequality. As might be imagined, Sandberg’s book presumably does not address this matter in any detail. As might be guessed, I tend to see things like sexism and racism as components of an overarching system of inequality-a system in which Sandberg can be a billionaire while others struggle to make enough money to buy their next meal.

A third point of criticism has been against Sandberg’s perceived elitism-that her using herself as an example is unfair to the average woman. On the one hand, this criticism can be seen as lacking in merit and a mere ad hominem attack based, perhaps, in jealousy rather than substance.

On the other hand, this criticism can have some substance to it. After all, when considering the difficulties and challenges that are faced by women, the perspective and experiences of Sandberg certainly do not match up to those of most other women. To use an example, a woman who cannot afford a nanny (or nannies) is going to face different challenges than Sandberg did when raising children. To use an analogy, my perspective and experience of the difficulty of covering 5+ miles on foot is rather different from that of most people. For me, it is something I can do easily (in fact, I do that six days a week and often run 2-3 times that distance) but for most people it would be at least challenging. As might be imagined, I am sensible enough to temper any advice I give to people based on what I know about their own abilities and experience. I do not, for example, just go around telling people to “run in.”

In any case, her book has been a major success for her-the controversy it has generated could not have been better crafted to help focus the attention of the media elites upon her and she is certainly going to move a lot of paper. While I am not sure if more women will “lean in”, we can be assured that she will cash in.

 

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Big Data & Ethics

Posted by on July 27, 2012 8 comments

 

Big Data, The Moving Parts: Fast Data, Big Ana...

Big Data, The Moving Parts: Fast Data, Big Analytics, and Deep Insight (Photo credit: Dion Hinchcliffe)

 

For those not familiar with the phrase,  ”Big Data” is used to describe the acquisition, storage and analysis of large quantities of data. The search giant Google was one of the pioneers in this area and it is developed into an industry worth billions of dollars. Big Data and its uses also raise ethical concerns.

One common use of Big Data is to analyse customer data so as to make predictions that would be useful in conducting targeted ad campaigns. Perhaps the most infamous example of this is Target’s pregnancy targeting. This Big Data adventure was a model of inductive reasoning. First, an analysis was conducted of Target customers who had signed up for Target’s new baby registry. The purchasing history of these women was analysed to find patterns of buying that corresponded to each stage of pregnancy. For example, pregnant women were found to often buy lots of unscented lotion at the start of the second trimester. Once the analysis revealed the buying patterns of pregnant women, Target then applied this information to the buying patterns of women customers. Oversimplifying things, they were essentially using an argument by analogy:  inferring that hat women not known to be pregnant who had X,Y, and Z patterns were probably pregnant because women known to be pregnant had X,Y, and Z buying patterns.  The women who were tagged as probably pregnant were then subject to targeted ads for baby products and this proved to be a winner for Target, other than some public relations issues.

One interesting aspect of this method is that it does not follow the usual model of predicting a person’s future buying behavior from  his/her past buying behavior. An example of predicting future buying behavior based on past behavior would be predicting that I would buy Gatorade the next time I went grocery shopping because I have been bought it consistently in the past. The analysis used by Target and other companies differs from this model by making inferences about the future behavior of customers based on their similarity to customers whose past buying behavior is known. For example, a store might see shifts in someone’s buying behavior that matches other data from people starting to get into fitness and thus predict the person was getting into fitness. The store might then send the person (and others like her) targeted ads featuring Gatorade coupons because their models show that such people buy more Gatorade.

This method also has an interesting Sherlock Holmes aspect to it. The fictional detective was able to use inductive logic (although he was presented as deducing) to make impressive inferences from seemingly innocuousness bits of information. Big Data can do this in reality and make reliable inferences based on what appears to be irrelevant information. For example, likely voting behavior might be inferred from factors such as one’s preferred beverage.

Naturally, Big Data can be used to sell a wide variety of products, including politicians and ideology. It also has non-commercial applications, such a law enforcement and political uses. As such, it is hardly surprising that companies and agencies are busily gathering and analyzing data at a relentless and ever growing pace. This certainly is cause for concern.

One ethical concern is that the use of Big Data can impact the outcome of elections. For example, analyzing massive amounts of data information can be acquired that would allow ads to be effectively crafted and targeted. Given that Big Data is expensive, the data advantage would tend to go to the side with the most money, thus increasing the influence of money on the outcome of elections. Naturally, the influence of money on elections is already a moral concern. While more spending does not assure victory, there is a clear connection between spending and success. To use but one obvious example, Mitt Romney was able to beta his Republican competitors in part by being able to outlast them financially and outspend them.

In any case, Big Data adds yet another tool and expense to political campaigning, thus making it more costly for people to run for office. This, in turn, means that those running for office will need even more money than before, thus making money an even greater factor than in the past. This, obviously enough, increases the ability of those with more money to influence the candidates and the issues.

On the face of it, it would seem unreasonable to require that campaigns go without Big Data. After all, it could be argued that this would be tantamount to demanding that campaigns operate in ignorance. However, the concerns about big money buying Big Data to influence elections could be addressed by campaign finance reform, which would be another ethical issue.

Perhaps the biggest ethical concern about Big Data is the matter of privacy. First, there is the ethical worry that much of the data used in Big Data is gathered without people knowing how the data will be used (and perhaps that it is even being gathered). For example, the customers at Target seemed to be unaware that Target was gathering such data about them to be analyzed and used to target ads.

While people might know that information is being collected about them, knowing this and knowing that the data will be analyzed for various purposes are two different things. As such, it can be argued that private data is being gathered without proper informed consent and this is morally wrong.

The obvious solution is for data collectors to make it clear about what the data will be used for, thus allowing people to make an informed choice regarding their private information. Of course, one problem that will remain is that it is rather difficult to know what sort of inferences can be made from seemingly innocuous data. As such, people might think that they are not providing any private data when they are, in fact, handing over data that can be used to make inferences about private matters.

If a business claims that they would be harmed because people would not hand over such information if they knew what it would be used for, the obvious reply is that this hardly gives them the right to deceive to get what they want. However, I do not think that businesses have much to worry about—Facebook has shown that many people are quite willing to hand over private information for little or nothing in return.

A second and perhaps the most important moral concern is that Big Data provides companies and others with the means of making inferences about people that go beyond the available data and into what might be regarded as the private realm. While this sort of reasoning is classic induction, Big Data changes the game because of the massive amount of data and processing power available to make these inferences, such as whether women are pregnant or not. In short, the analysis of seemingly innocuous data can yield inferences about information that people would tend to regard as private—or at the very least, information they would not think would be appropriate for a company to know.

One obvious counter to this is to argue that privacy rights are not being violated. After all, as long as the data used does not violate the privacy of individuals, then the inferences made from this data cannot be regarded as violating people’s privacy, even if the inferences are about matters that people would regard as private (such as pregnancy). To use an analogy, if I were to spy on someone and learn from thus that she was an alcoholic, then I would be violating her privacy. However, if I inferred that she is an alcoholic from publically available information, then I might know something private about her, but I have not violated her privacy.

This counter is certainly appealing. After all, there does seem to be a meaningful and relevant distinction between directly getting private information by violating privacy and inferring private information using public (or at least legitimately provided) data. To use an analogy, if I get the secret ingredient in someone’s prize recipe by sneaking a look at the recipe, then I have acted wrongly. However, if I infer the secret ingredient by tasting the food when I am invited to dinner, then I have not acted wrongly.

A reasonable reply to this counter is that while there is a difference between making an inference that yields private data and getting the data directly, there is also the matter of intent. It is, for example, one thing to infer the secret ingredient simply by tasting it, but it is quite another to arrange to get invited to dinner specifically so I can get that secret ingredient by tasting the food.  To use another example, it is one thing to infer that someone is an alcoholic, but quite another to systematically gather public data in order to determine whether or not she is an alcoholic. In the case of Big Data, there is clearly intent to infer data that customers have not already voluntarily provided. After all, if the data had been provided, there would be no need to undertake an analysis in order to get the desired information. Thus, while the means do not involve a direct violation of privacy rights, they do involve an indirect violation—at least in cases in which the data is private (or at least intended to be private).

The solution, which would probably be rather problematic to implement, would involve setting restrictions on what sort of inferences can be made from the data on the grounds that people have a right to keep that information private, even if the means used to acquire it did not involve any direct violations of privacy rights.

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The Ethics of Porn

Posted by on June 25, 2012 25 comments

English: Porn star Cytherea at XRCO Awards in ...

“No porno has ever lost money”, or so said a running friend of mine when he quoted one of his economic professors. This was some years ago and it appears that it is no longer true. Ironically, porn has been a victim of the internet. Much as video killed the radio star, the internet has killed the porn star.

At this point, most folks are probably thinking “that cannot be true! Far from killing porn, the internet is for porn.” This is both true and not true: the internet did kill porn. But the internet is also for porn. Fortunately, this is not some sort of Schrodinger’s Porn in which the porn is neither alive nor dead until it is observed. Rather, the situation can easily be explained without any odd quantum physics.

While I am sure that the readers of this blog have never witnessed this in person, the internet tubes are jammed with porn. Because of this, the traditional porn industry (like the newspaper industry) is in hard times (which is surely the name of a porno). After all, when people can get their porn anonymously and  for free (or at least very cheaply) on the web, they are unlikely to buy the traditional porn movies. As such, it is no surprise that the traditional porn industry has gone from a money making giant to being in its death spiral. As such, the internet has killed (traditional) porn, while the internet is most definitely for porn. Interestingly enough, this decline of the traditional porn industry does raise some ethical concerns.

One point of concern is one that arises whenever an industry is in a death spiral, namely a concern for the people who work in that industry. While some porn stars have been able to achieve success outside of porn, the fall of the traditional porn industry will leave most of the performers in a rather hard situation (which, I am sure, is also the name of a porno). To be specific, many of them will have no qualifications beyond having sex on camera and will have little in the ways of savings and opportunities. While some will be able to switch careers, some will not. As such, it seems worth being concerned about these people.

One obvious reply is that this sort of industry death is just the way of things and economic causalities are inevitable. After all, the rise of the steam engine, electricity and so on killed many industries and the internet is just the most recent example of a economic re-definer. As such, while the economic woes of the folks in porn  is regrettable, we have no special obligation to support those who elected to enter a dying industry. They can, of course, avail themselves of the usual support offered to the unemployed and they can attempt find employment elsewhere.

A second reply is that the death of the porn industry can be seen as a good thing. After all, feminists have long argued that the typical porn is demeaning and harmful and thus morally wrong. Religious groups and moral conservatives have also argued against porn because of its corrupting influence (often unconsciously duplicating Plato’s classic arguments for banning the corrupting influence of art from the ideal state). Thus, the death of porn is a good thing.

The rather obvious reply is that the death of the porn industry is not the death of porn. As noted above, porn is thriving on the internet. To use an analogy, the state of porn is somewhat like the state of newspapers: while the traditional professional industry is dying, the amateurs are flooding the web with words and porn.

Given this fact, it might be expected that those who worked in the professional porn industry can flock to the electronic frontier and make a living in web porn. After all, if Facebook can rake in billions allowing people to post about eating a bagel and to share cat photos, surely something like F@ckbook could be created to provide a home for porn performers.

The obvious reply to this is that the people using Facebook do not make money and presumably the porn performers on F@ckbook would be in the same boat-although someone else would probably get rich. As far as the performers working on the web, one has but to look at the financial success of the typical blogger to get an idea how well going amateur typically pays on the web. After all, people are generally not inclined to pay for what they can get for free. This is not to say that clever people are no longer able to monetize porn, just that the performers will almost certainly be worse off in the new porn economy.

A final point of moral concern is whether or not the porn viewers have a moral debt to those who make it possible for them to see porn. This is not, of course, unique to porn and a similar question arises when it comes to journalism, music, books, non-porn movies and so on. After all, people can readily acquire almost anything digital for free (legitimately or by theft) on the web.

Since I have argued about digital theft in other essays, I will simply note that an excellent case can be made that stealing digital content is morally wrong. As such, the arguments I have made elsewhere would seem to apply to stealing porn as well. However, there is an interesting potential twist here: perhaps the moral dubiousness of the porn industry can provide a moral justification for stealing porn. That is, doing something bad to a bad industry is not bad.

While this has a certain superficial appeal, it can easily be countered. First, stealing from the porn industry is still stealing. Second, stealing from the porn industry does not seem to do anything to counter any moral badness of the industry-that is, the theft cannot be justified on the grounds that it makes things morally better. It could, of course, be justified on the grounds that it might be denying income to the wicked. But, of course, this leads to the third counter: a person steals porn to use porn, thus any moral high ground is clearly lost. This would be somewhat like a person arguing that it is okay to steal drugs to use from drug dealers because drugs are bad. This would, obviously, be a rather poor moral argument.

As far as the free content goes, while giving such product away for free might not be the wisest business model, availing oneself of free stuff is clearly not morally wrong. However, there is still the question of whether or not one should simply free ride an industry rather than contributing to it financially.

On the one hand, a person obviously has no moral obligation to support an industry because s/he has taken free stuff from said industry. After all, it is free. On the other hand, it could be argued that there is some obligation. After all, if the person values what they get for free, then they should contribute to what makes it possible for such stuff to be available for free.

The rather obvious counter to this is that it is up to a business to do what it takes to get customers to support them. If they elect to adopt an approach to business that provides potential customers with everything they want for free, then they have no grounds to complain when those potential customers never actually buy things. While it would be nice of the users to give back to the business, business cannot be sensibly based on this sort of model. As such, it is not so much that the internet killed porn. Rather the porn industry is committing suicide with the internet.

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Facebook, Privacy & Employers

Posted by on May 7, 2012 9 comments
Česky: Logo Facebooku English: Facebook logo E...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There has been a minor controversy regarding employers requiring (or “requesting”) job candidates and employees to hand over access to their Facebook accounts. Those favoring this argue that employers need to know certain things about job candidates and employees and hence this is justified. Those opposed to it tend to argue that this violates privacy rights.

On the one hand, it can be argued that employers should be allowed such access. After all, Facebook accounts can provide a wealth of information about employees and candidates that would be very useful to the employer and this usefulness could be taken as justifying the intrusion. For example, a company could learn a great deal about a candidate whose posts show that he is a racist. As another example, a company could learn important information about an employee who posts photos of herself wasting time at work and stealing office supplies.

In cases in which the job involves matters of security (such as law enforcement), then having such access would seem to be even more reasonable. After all, a prison hiring guards would certainly want to know whether a candidate had photos of himself flashing gang signs.

On the other hand, there seem to be some rather good reasons against granting such access to employers. The most obvious is that the mere fact that the information would be useful to the employers does not entail that they have a right to access it. After all, access to candidates’ and employees’ personal conversations, journals, diaries, real-world photo albums, personal phone records, home, friends and so on would be very useful to employers. However, it would seem absurd to say, for example, that my university has a right to go through my house looking for information that might be useful to it. As such, it would seem that the employer’s need to know is not overriding. Naturally, there can be legitimate exceptions, such as during legal action. If I were, for example, stealing computers from my university, then the police would certainly have a right to search my house for the stolen goods-once they got a warrant, of course.

It might be objected that Facebook is not the same as these things. After all, it is online and it is intended to be a social network. As such, it is acceptable for employers to have access to these accounts. In reply, being online and being a social network does not entail a right to access. After all, personal email is online, but this hardly gives my employer the right to read my personal email.  The fact that Facebook includes personal messaging makes this a rather exact analogy. In regards to the social network access, Facebook explicitly allows users to control access-just as people can control access in the actual world. My employer does not have the right to listen in when I am running with friends or to send an agent to observe my gaming. As such,  they should not have these rights in regards to Facebook. In short, given that employers are not entitled to access to such information avenues in the real world it would follow that they are not entitled to that information merely because it is on Facebook. There is simply no relevant difference between the two and the burden of proof rests on those who would claim otherwise.

It might be countered that people do have a choice whether or not to hand over access. After all, they could refuse and not get the job or refuse and be fired. However, this is rather obviously not much of a choice. After all, a candidate or employer who is asked to trade sexual favors for a job has the choice to refuse. However, it would be absurd to say that this entails that employers can thus request sexual favors. Likewise, employers would not seem to have the right to require candidates and employees to hand over access to their Facebook accounts.

It might be countered that people who have nothing to hid have nothing to worry about. This is, of course, a fundamentally flawed reply. The mere fact that I have nothing to hide does not entail in any way that my employee should thus have the right to have access to my information. After all, I am in pretty good shape, so I have nothing to hide under my clothes. This does not entail that my employer gets to see me showering. I also have nothing to hide in my email or my house, but this hardly entails that my employer should be able to just read through my emails or wander about in my house at will.

A somewhat interesting point worth considering is that employers screened candidates and kept an eye on employees long before Facebook existed. While Facebook does provide one-stop privacy violation shopping, it would seem that the methods used before Facebook should suffice. There is also the matter of people who do not have Facebook accounts. Should they be required to get accounts so that their employers can check them?

As a final point, the state usually has to go through a legal process to get into private information (although the war on terror has changed this). As such, it might seem rather odd that employers can act with greater power than the state. Interestingly, in the United States employers often seem to have more power over peoples’ lives than the state-and this is often endorsed by the same folks who claim to be for liberty. However, we should be just as much on guard against impositions against liberty by employers as by the state.

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Higher Education: Too Good of a Deal?

Posted by on March 7, 2012 9 comments
education

education (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

One rather sad fact about higher education is that it is one area where, as I heard a comedian say, the customer wants to get as little for her money as possible. This is demonstrated quite nicely by the relatively low attendance rates in many classes and the fact that students often fail to avail themselves of office hours. Being a professor, I have often thought about why this is the case. Part of it, obviously enough, seems to be the nature of the American education system-it seems almost intentionally designed to be a boredom factory. Another part is that professors are not trained to entertain and hence we are ill equipped to compete with the media smorgasbord offered by the internet and television. A third part is that students have found that they can get by without actually putting in much effort and they generally do not see much value in putting in the effort beyond what is needed to get by. In this students differ not at all from the rest of the population-try to think of how often you encounter excellence and people going above and beyond in their endeavors. While I could keep going with various factors, the last one I will present is that higher education is often a pretty good deal. This assertion might, on the face of it, seem insane on two grounds. First, it seems like madness to claim that students would be less inclined to get more out of education because it is a good deal. Second, it might seem beyond insanity to claim that education is actually a good deal-after all, the cost of higher education is supposed to be absurdly high these days. However, since I enjoy seeing people argue against my mad claims, I will endeavor to argue for both of these. On the face of it, people should be more attracted to good deals than inferior deals. After all, its seems eminently rational to want to get more for less. However, what seems rational and what people do tend to be two rather different things. To illustrate this, consider the matter of free stuff. On the face of it, people should be very drawn to what is free. After all, they are getting something for nothing. While this can hold true in some cases (for example, people grabbing free swag at expos or free samples at stores) the opposite often holds true. For example, free events often fail to attract as many people as the same sort of event that is not free would attract. A rather plausible explanation is that people value their time and hence that will always be a cost, even for free stuff. So, if an event takes time, a person will presumably consider if the event is worth their time. An event that is available for free can be thus seen as lacking value (after all, if it was a worthwhile event, surely people would charge for it). So, people will be less inclined to participate in a free event. In the case of higher education, it is not free. However, if it is seen as relatively low cost for the student, s/he might not see attending class or going to office hours as worth the cost in his/her time. After all, the loss of not attending class or office hours is seen as being less than the loss of attending class or going to office hours. To use a rather specific example, consider the case of a student who works. If she is in class or at my office hours talking about philosophy, then she is not working and getting her hourly wage. As such, attending my class or going to my office hours is a loss for her. Of course, if she fails the class, then this a loss-but this can be avoided by putting in just enough effort to pass. Thus, the student can have both-getting the credit hours to graduate and also getting as much time as possible for other things, such as work or Facebooking. If, however, the class or office hours were very costly, then students might thus be more inclined to attend. After all, missing the class or office hours would cost more than what would be gained by skipping class. Another point well worth considering is that although the class (and office hours) might have a high cost, this need not be paid by the student. So, if the student is attending college at the parents’ or states’ expense, then they do not “feel” that cost and hence they have less motivation to attend class since any alternative will tend to give them more perceived value for their time. Naturally this is not always the case-some students do value their class time even when they are not paying the majority of the educational bill. I now turn to the second point, that higher education is a rather good deal. Back in 2009 I fell from my roof and tore my quadriceps tendon. The repair surgery took about 40 minutes and I was in the hospital only a few hours (most of which was spent waiting). The bill was about $11,000. While this is an extreme example, people routinely pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars per hour for experts such as psychiatrists, doctors, politicians, lawyers, mechanics, plumbers, and so on. People often wait a long time for appointments and the wait even more when the appointment time arrives. While folks complain, they do seem to value these services. In the case of higher education, a student typically is guaranteed about three hours of access to a professor per week in class and also there are office hours open to all students. These days students also expect email access to faculty-I get emails around the clock from students. While students sometimes have adjuncts or graduate students as professors, at my university the vast majority of classes are taught by professors with terminal degrees (usually a doctorate) who are experts in their fields. Since a semester is 16 weeks long, that means that a student gets access to a top professional for about 40 hours a semester (not including office hours, emails and phone calls). Even with the rising cost of education, this seems like a rather good deal for the students-perhaps so good that it causes students to undervalue education. After all, how many people pay a plumber, medical doctor or engineer and simply fail to avail themselves of the time they paid for? Of course, a viable alternative hypothesis is that educators like myself are, in fact, offering far less value than we believe. If so, perhaps students are wise to miss our classes and avoid our office hours because they could always be doing something far more valuable with their time, such as Facebooking about how useless their classes are.

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Weiner & Tragedy

Posted by on June 6, 2011 15 comments
Anthony Weiner

Image via Wikipedia

Congressman Anthony Weiner recently made headlines over a Tweeted photo of a groin. He denied that he had sent the photo and insisted that he had been hacked. However, his handling of certain questions led many to doubt his veracity. In a press conference on June 6, he admitted that he had sent the Tweet and that he had lied to cover this up.

The press conference was a rather interesting in four ways. First, he accepted full responsibility for his actions and did not try to shift the blame to anyone or anything else. Second, he noted that his actions were due to a weakness and flaw in his character. Third, he answered question for about thirty minutes, visibly taking a beating. Fourth, his wife was not present-which is something rather unusual when an American politician has been caught in a scandal involving a sexual element. Seeing this conference started me thinking about tragedy in the Aristotelian sense.

Briefly put, a tragedy has two main aspects: the nature of the action and the nature of the main agent. In terms of the action, a person has to go from happiness to misery via a mistake on his part. Second, the agent needs to be good, but not overly so. The fact that the downfall was due to an error on the person’s part enables people to feel fear-”there, but for the grace of God, go I.” The fact that the person is basically decent enables people to feel pity. After all, when bad things happen to wicked people, we are not generally inclined to feel for them. However, when bad things happen to decent people, this tends to elicit feelings of pity.

In Weiner’s case, he clearly has gone from happiness to misery. He has been revealed as a liar and his wife is certainly not happy with him. His chances of being re-elected have been diminished. This misery is, of course, self inflicted and the result of poor choices: though he is married he was inappropriately  involved via Twitter and Facebook with women and when he accidentally exposed himself, he chose to lie about it.

Looking at things honestly, I think that most of us can easily imagine being in a situation somewhat like Weiner’s. After all, social media makes it very easy to communicate with people and engage in what might begin as harmless friend making that devolves into flirting. As Weiner himself pointed out, social media is not to blame for our failings-but it does provide a rather slippery social slope. Social media also provides an instantaneous way to be stupid, thus sometimes shorting out one’s better judgment. Email and blog commenting also have a similar effect: it is easy to dash off a thoughtless email or comment and then realize the full extent of the stupidity when it is too late.

When people make mistakes, especially shameful mistakes, they are rarely inclined to admit to these errors. Rather, people tend to do just what Weiner did: try to conceal the error and then resort to lying. This, as Weiner knew, merely makes things worse by compounding the original error with more poor and unethical choices.

As such, it seems quite reasonable for most of us, especially us men, to think “yes, I could have been a Weiner.” For the record, I have never sent a “junk shot” via Twitter. However, I have made decisions in life I regret and hence have some sympathy for Weiner. I do, however, have far more sympathy for his wife.

What is obviously more controversial is whether he is basically a decent man who made a mistake or not.  Obviously enough, Weiner is not morally outstanding. He was involved with women via social media in a way that he felt comfortable sending “junk shots.” He also lied to cover up his misdeeds. However, he does not seem to be a wicked man. Assuming he is not lying again, his relationships with the women allegedly did not go beyond the realm of social media. While this was hardly ethical, it was not wicked or evil. While his lying was also unethical, he did not violate his oath of office or break any laws. As such, the extent of his immorality was fairly minor-lies told to cover up something shameful and embarrassing. As lies go, his lies are rather low on the evil scale.Weiner also appeared (although it is hard to judge from a single press conference) to be sincerely repentant and remorseful for what he had done-especially the hurt he had inflicted on his wife.As such, Weiner does not seem to be a wicked man who was brought low by his wickedness. Rather, he seems to be a basically decent sort of person who chose poorly due to flaws in his character. As such, it seems reasonable to consider the situation as a minor tragedy-at least in Aristotle’s sense.

Naturally, if new information is forthcoming, my assessment might well change. If Weiner actually had “relationships” with one or more of the women or was faking his emotions during the press conference, then his status as a decent, but flawed, person would come under greater question.

In any case, Weiner is yet another example of why honesty is the best policy. Of course, an even better policy is to not do stupid stuff that one might feel tempted to lie about.

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Firesheep & Evil

Posted by on October 26, 2010 14 comments
Picture of notebook screen with Facebook and F...
Image via Wikipedia

In America there is a saying “guns don’t kill people.” Some wits add “people with  guns kill people.” While this saying is just that, a saying, it does put a handy slogan on a view about moral responsibility. On the face of it, the sayings are dead on: while a gun can be used to kill a person, guns are not themselves moral agents. As such, a gun bears no moral responsibility for any deaths that it might be used to bring about.

The gun debate has been done to death in America, so I thought it would be interesting to switch the focus a bit while still sticking with the general issue of responsibility for harm. To be specific, I will be looking at a hacking program called Firesheep (not to be confused with the browser Firefox or the emulator Sheepshaver).

Firesheep was written by Eric Butler and adds easy to use hacking functions to the Firefox web browser. The add on lets users view information in internet cookies at sites such as Twitter, Facebook. Flickr, Tumblr and Yelp.  Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your view of the matter) Firesheep is limited in what it can do. It can allow a user to get usernames and session number IDs but it cannot be used to get passwords. In effect, it allows users to view information (such as person’s Facebook or Amazon account) but does not let users do anything that would require a password. It is also limited to hacking on the same network. However, this means that if you are reading this blog on a public wi-fi, then someone with Firesheep could be reading through your darkest Facebook secrets. Like that time you…well, you know what you did. And so does that creepy fellow sitting two tables down.

Butler makes it clear that he sees himself as a white hat: he is hacking to expose vulnerabilities so that they will be fixed.  Interestingly, he does directly address the moral issue at hand:  “The attack that Firesheep demonstrates is easy to do using tools that have been available for years. Criminals already knew this, and I reject the notion that something like Firesheep turns otherwise innocent people evil.”

On the face of it, Butler is quite right. Firesheep, like other tools, is not some sort of cursed weapon that can possess the mind of potential victims and compel them to do evil (unlike television which does just that). The same is, obviously enough, true of other potential harmful pieces of technology, such as guns and junk food. As such, Butler and the other folks who make such tools available are not directly accountable for what people do with the tools. As the arms dealers probably say, “I just provide the weapons, the customer does the actual killing.” I do not, however, mean to suggest that Butler had any malign intent in creating and releasing Firesheep. Rather, he seems to be like Dr. Gatling-hoping that his creation will do good rather than further evil.

There is, however, a somewhat deeper concern. Namely that providing the tools that makes misdeeds easier makes a person accountable to a degree. While the person who invents or distributes such tools or weapons does not make people evil or make them do misdeeds, the person does make such misdeeds easier. As such, the person providing the tool does play a causal role in the misdeeds-especially if the tool or weapon serves as a “but for” cause. For example, if someone would have been unable to track down and start stalking an ex without using Firesheep, the ex would have not been stalked but for Firesheep. As such, making misdeeds easier does seem to bring with it a degree of moral accountability.

Butler does. of course, anticipate this sort of criticism. As he notes, the tools already exist to do just what Firesheep does. Firesheep is just better known and easier to use. To use an analogy, Butler is not inventing the gun. He is merely making the gun easier to use.

Other folks, myself included, are helping make Firesheep famous. Following the above logic, this would also make me and the others folks contributors in some cases. For example, if somebody (not you, of course) reads this post, learns of Firesheep and then hacks an ex’s Facebook account to find and stalk the ex, then I have contributed to that misdeed. Of course, my contribution is extremely limited and hence so is my moral accountability.

“Firesheep doesn’t hack. People hack with Firesheep.”

Thoughts?

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Deleting Principles

Posted by on September 23, 2010 29 comments
Police
Blog Police (Image via Wikipedia)

Despite the post name, this is not about getting rid of your principles (although that could be handy for folks considering a career in politics). Rather, it is about when it is acceptable to delete comments from a blog post.

To start off, let me get the easy ones out of the way. As I argued in an earlier post, deleting spam and web droppings seems perfectly acceptable. No blog has an obligation to serve as free advertising for spammers and web droppings have as much right to remain as bird droppings.  Now on to matters a bit more controversial.

In general, there seem to be two main areas on which to assess whether a comment should remain or be banished by deletion. These are, obviously enough, tone/style and content.

In regards to tone/style, those that are excessively negative tend to provide a basis on which to delete in a principled way. Examples of negative tone/style include being needlessly hateful, needlessly condescending, or needlessly hostile. As others have noted, being negative (or, to be more technical, an ass) out of proportion to the provocation seem to provide grounds for considering deletion.

Not surprisingly, drawing a line that will allow consistent deletion can be a challenge. Despite this challenge, a consistent principle seems to be rather desirable. After all, as in law and ethics, the rules should be consistent and non-arbitrary. That way people know, in advance, what sort of behavior is acceptable and what is not. From a practical standpoint, this also helps avoid conflict over such matters and this is generally a good thing for a blog. After all, the idea of having a blog is to attract readers and active participants rather than drive them away.

Blog moderators will vary in what is considered tolerable in regards to tone/style. Those that prefer a rougher approach will tolerate more negative tones and styles. Those who wish to have a nicer environment or prefer a blog that seems more professional in character will no doubt tolerate less.

As a general principle, it does seem reasonable to expect civil behavior. Since there is already a well established set of principles in this area, it makes good sense to assume (unless otherwise noted) that these general principles apply on a blog. For example, being hateful, using needless vulgarities and being excessively condescending all violate the intuitive standards of civility.

However, to the degree that these are a matter of etiquette there is a great deal of flexibility. After all, what counts as rude or negative  is often a matter of context.  For example, some people are quite comfortable with the casual use of “obscene” words and see them as part of everyday vocabulary. So, while it seems reasonable to accept the general principle that  excessively negative comments should be deleted, what counts as excessively negative will need to be defined by the blog moderator, preferably by working with the community of the blog.

On my own blog, I follow the “common sense” rules of civility: don’t be needlessly hateful, keep the obscenity in check, avoid being excessively condescending, and show the degree of respect that one would like to receive in return. Since I lack Victorian sensibilities and have been hardened by years of online gaming, I tend to be fairly tolerant of some rough talk-provided that there is some merit to the comments. This provides a nice transition to the matter of content.

Deleting on the basis of content is perhaps the most controversial (with some notable exceptions like spam). In some cases, it will seem quite acceptable to delete comments. For example, comments that entirely lacking in relevance but are full of racist, sexist or other hateful remarks are excellent candidates for deletion.Not surprisingly, many blogs have rules against such comments (as well as against comments that can cause legal trouble, such as threats and libelous claims).

In these cases as well as less extreme cases, a reasonable principle seems to be to weigh the positive value of a comment (its merit measured in terms of what it adds to the discussion) against the negative aspects of the comment. These negative aspects can include both style/tone and content. For example, a comment might be relevant to a post and raise a legitimate criticism of said post, but it might be presented in a condescending tone and might also contain insulting content.

As is to be expected, if the positive value of the comment is determined to be outweighed by its negative aspects, then deletion would seem to be justified. This can be justified by the obvious fact that the person making the comment could have written the comment without the negative aspects and thus made her point without all the negative tone/style or content. There is, after all, generally no need to be an ass and no one has a right to expect that such needless “assing” will be tolerated.

On  my own blog I am inclined to tolerate a fair amount of negative content or style/tone, provided that it is offset by an even greater amount of positive content. Rather than deleting such comments, it seems that a better approach is to at least make an attempt to persuade the person to be less negative and thus contribute more to the discussion.

Some blogs take the approach of deleting comments that disagree with the slant, agenda or goal of the blog. For example, a liberal blog moderator might delete any criticisms that are conservative in nature even if the comments are well reasoned and civil.

While blog moderators have the right to do this, this does not seem like an appropriate approach to such comments. Of course, my view is based on the assumption that an open discussion that allows criticism is both valuable and desirable. Other folks, obviously enough, see “discussion” as a tool for advancing a specific agenda or view and thus have no tolerance for any opposing views or criticism. That, I believe, is the wrong way to run a blog on both moral and critical thinking grounds. I’ll leave my reasons here for the discussion that is likely to follow.

In the case of a philosophy blog, this sort of approach would seem to grossly violate the traditional spirit of philosophy. As such, on my own blog I never delete comments because they are critical of my views, arguments, or beliefs (or those of others).

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