The Internet: Humanity's Collective Consciousness

My wife asked an interesting question last night: Given all the information readily available on the Internet, why go to school to learn anything? Granted, it’s difficult to acquire hands-on skills via the Internet, but in terms of the information that is available, why memorize anything when almost any information is so readily accessed? My wife asked this question in a negative sense, meaning she disapproved of the way (American) society is shaping up and being educated when compared to what we went through as children. [Oh, god, we’ve reached that age.]

I distinctly remember what a big deal it was when my junior high school got Commodore 64’s. At the time, the Internet was still just a gleam in Al Gore’s eyes. As I finally got around to finishing my B.S. in 2011, I recall students in college math and physics class being allowed to use their phones or other devices during tests. Although I did not cave into that temptation, I suppose such is the way we integrate ourselves with technology. Yes, it is easy to view the Internet’s influence as negative when we had it so ‘hard’ when my wife and I were growing up. Really, though, that negativity stems from a sense of foul play, of the game changing and no longer being fair to the older generations. This by itself doesn’t make the Internet unworthy of the degree to which it is currently used. I see nothing inherently wrong with the Internet such as it is, as a repository for information we would otherwise be holding in our own brains. That’s pretty much how I view the Internet as a whole, like a brain, only it’s everyone’s brain. (Well, everyone who has a connection.)

Think of all the kinds of information we upload. Reliable information, unreliable information, real-time information, memories, procedures, our likes, our dislikes, and we answer self-assessment quizzes. We can train, do commerce, and socialize through the Internet; there is a lot we do through the Internet that we used to do without it. The difference is that now, we can do many things faster and our reach can be global (which has had the unexpected consequence of proliferating subcultures). So why so much adversity to technology, especially from older people?

One obvious answer is that people get set in their ways and believe what was an already adequate way of doing things (for them) does not need to change. Getting set in one’s ways prohibiting learning, which is too bad since learning helps maintain cognition. A second answer might be that people generally fail to see the Big Picture. In this context I’m talking about people seeing the Internet for what it really is; our collective consciousness. We access the same things – types of information – from the Internet in a manner similar to how we use our own brains, the difference being that the source of information is kept external to ourselves and is more reliable in its presentation (not more reliable in accuracy, though, and we cannot recall feelings or emotions from the Internet. Not yet, anyway). Ultimately, the Internet is neither good nor bad; it just is what it is. I believe aversion for the Internet stems from something a bit more subtle; the vulnerability of the Internet to those who rely too heavily upon it or wish to abuse it.

I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with students using the Internet to do their physics or math tests but doing so does make those students vulnerable should the Internet ever go away. Whereas I was able to do my physics or math work by pulling information out of my head, other students are relying on the assumption that the Internet will always be there for them when they need information. If the point of terrorism is to disrupt lives, I don’t understand why terrorists do not try to destroy the infrastructure that supports the Internet or do not try to disrupt its operation more often. Have you been around people who are otherwise always connected when the Internet is disrupted for more than an hour? It’s a little bit frightening. That’s because they are left alone with their own brain when the Internet, The Brain as I like to call it now, is so much more entertaining seeing how their desire to always be connected has deprived them of actively participating in life and gaining experiences. (Being constantly connected also prevents contemplative or reflective thought among a species that already engages in it so infrequently.)

Indeed, why bother to learn anything when you can just access The Brain? Because if the The Brain were to ever go away, humanity’s technological progress would be thrown back at least two hundred years, and I do not believe most people today could survive a day in even the most advanced country in 1814, or a Third World country today. Of course, that’s what Western countries would become if The Brain died; there’d be societal collapse, seeing how people would no longer have bank accounts and therefore could not buy food and don’t know how to garden and can no longer access that information on a device they overpaid for…you get the picture. Relying on The Brain too much leaves one vulnerable. Is that what we want in a world where it seems that despite all the information in The Brain, people still don’t seem to know anything?

As consciousness is an emergent property of our brains and our brains are made up of discreet cells vulnerable to failure, so too may the cells (people) of The Brain fail. We should be required to memorize information and be able to apply skills for if we cannot, then what are we? Merely individual cells that aren’t terribly important to consciousness.

Utilitarianism vs Deontology

Having just read a chapter in The Best of Super Heroes and Philosophy titled “Why Doesn’t Batman Kill the Joker?” written by Mark White, I am prompted to revisit the apparent moral dilemma between consequences and taking certain actions. The chapter likens Batman’s moral dilemma not to kill his arch enemy to the well-known “trolley problem,” one of the more ingenious (in its simplicity) thought experiments in moral philosophy. When it comes to Batman’s dilemma, the Utilitarian view would contend that Batman should kill the Joker so that the least suffering and greatest happiness is achieved through such an action; by Batman killing the Joker, future lives will be saved. [While there is no guarantee the Joker will kill again after any given victim, his history indicates that he most likely will.] The other side of that coin is the Deontologist’s view that Batman should not kill the Joker because the act of killing is in and of itself wrong. Batman appears to agree and has long contended that killing villains would make him no better than them. As it relates to the trolley problem, a Deontologist would let the trolley take its course and kill five people (assuming nothing is known about the five potential victims versus the one potential victim on the other track) since there is nothing wrong with inaction.

It is with the Deontologist’s view that I cannot abide by, seeing how they try to make a distinction between action an inaction, a distinction I disagree with. In this case, the Deontologist would say that Batman cannot kill the Joker because killing is inherently wrong while not killing the Joker, though the Joker will likely kill again, alleviates Batman of responsibility for the Joker’s future victims. The Deontologist is contending that to take certain actions (such as killing) are wrong across the board while inaction (such as not killing a homicidal maniac) does not leave someone like Batman responsible for the consequences. But whether Batman does something or not, both are actions. Killing the Joker would be one action and going off and doing something other than killing the Joker is also an action, with ‘inaction’ being something of a misnomer. Unless one is dead it is impossible to take no actions. For Batman to take an action other than the action of killing the Joker is just as bad, if not worse, than killing the Joker since the sum total of all the Joker’s killings – which are inherently wrong on the Deontologist’s view – would be much more inherently wrong than Batman making a single exception to his rule about not killing criminals. The Deontologist may object here and say that each instance of killing is wrong and cannot be added together to arrive at a seemingly consequentialist conclusion, but such a defense is arbitrary; there is no objective evidence that prevents the wrongness of an action to become greater the more one does it. If the defense is arbitrary, it is tempting to look at the problem from a practical point of view since this is how people act in the real world: If I’m Batman and I know that if I don’t kill the Joker, countless lives will remain at risk. But if I kill the Joker, I could more ably live with one act of wrongness than letting the Joker continue his numerous acts of wrongness.

Of course, not killing the Joker may make Batman extremely happy, so happy in fact that he may think that he is actually being a Utilitarian. For if Batman were to become so distraught over killing the Joker he could not go on being Batman, this would ultimately cause the world a greater amount of suffering than if he were to kill the Joker. However, most of Batman’s enemies are nowhere near the level of homicidal mania the Joker displays, so for Batman to think in these kinds of Utilitarian terms appears to be a weak defense. (This view may also be downright egotistical considering there are so many other superheroes around, one of which you would think would kill the Joker. Where’s Marvel Comic’s The Punisher when you need him?) One way or another, Batman is going to wind up morally culpable for whatever the Joker does after the next time Batman refuses to kill him.

On a related note, the death penalty as it is practiced is institutionalized on Utilitarian grounds while those seeking to abolish the death penalty take the Deontologist’s position, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of a criminal’s wrongdoing and potential to be a grave threat to the general public. And again I would argue to not take certain actions against such a criminal would amount to such vast wrongness that the wrongness of a few applications of the death penalty pales in comparison. It’s akin to choosing the lesser of two evils. Sure, one will be wrong either way, but the Deontological position is ultimately worse than the Utilitarian position. In the trolley problem, passively allowing five people on the train tracks to die is five times worse than flipping a switch and intentionally killing one person. Not flipping the switch to kill one person is still an action, meaning one is still responsible for the results, intentions be damned. (Those who think intentions actually make a difference in these types of situations are those who subconsciously and overwhelming value an individual’s right to autonomy, which conveniently absolves one from helping in situations help could be given. Of course, it is not practical to provide help every time one could and we let Deontologists – and ourselves – off the hook on these grounds.)  

When given a choice in Batman’s situation between being a Utilitarian or a Deontologist, Batman should opt for killing the Joker, given that the Deontologist’s position is facetious. Yes, if you ever have the choice to be Batman, be Batman. Just remember that Utilitarianism requires you to kill the Joker.

The Idiocy of Dinesh D'Souza

Last week, Fox News’ Sean Hannity had fellow demagogue Dinesh D’Souza on his show so that the proud immigrant-cum-old-white-man’s-proponent could cry foul for Costco pulling his book, “America,” out of its stores. Costco defended its actions on grounds that the book was selling poorly. D’Souza, whining like the cowardly liberal babies he’s always attacking, went on to make a number of logical fallacies in his defense. This really shouldn’t surprise us since logical fallacies are consistently D’Souza’s soup-de-jour.

Does D’Souza have a right to be upset about Costco’s actions? Sure, he has a right to be upset but that doesn’t mean that his being upset is justified. As a Republican and, moreover, the fact that D’Souza extols the virtue of free markets without or with minimal regulation in his latest book, Costco should be able to sell or not sell whatever it wants. This is where D’Souza’s defenders, Hannity among them, cry ‘censorship’ apparently not knowing what the word ‘censorship’ means in relation to free markets. So here you have Costco acting in exactly the manner Republicans want businesses to act, that is, until one of their own doesn’t like it. If Costco is guilty of censorship, aren’t Christian book stores guilty of censorship for not selling books that criticize Christian beliefs? (Remember, Christian book stores are not churches and therefore are for-profit, meaning they have to play by the same rules as every other business. Hypothetically, anyway, since we know which way the Supreme Court currently leans. Thanks, Hobby Lobby.)

But Hannity and D’Souza’s main argument is to tie Costco to the Obama Administration, basically saying that there was a conspiracy to pull the book from the store. Nevermind that a score of other books by Conservative authors remain on Costco’s shelves; the decision to pull “America” was purely political. I see. So, by that argument, whenever a company contributes campaign funds to a politician, we should be wary of those types of relationships. I do not necessarily disagree, but you can’t say Fox News ever brings such

Old White Guy in Indian clothing.

relationships to light when it’s their politicians and their lobbyists. If Fox News doesn’t report it, we can’t decide. Clever. But the strangest thing about this particular argument is that Hannity and D’Souza claim a mere $303, 000 in contributions to the Obama Administration from Costco, which they consider excessive but which the rest of us consider paltry compared to what, say, oil and coal energy companies contribute to the Republican party. (Yes, they contribute to Democrats, too, though not nearly as much.) So D’Souza isn’t being any more consistent than he’s being logical. We should be wary of people like that.

If for no other reason, D’Souza’s book “America” should be pulled for being a screed minimally based in logic or reasoning, though we should expect such a book from someone can’t operate without his logical fallacies. A quick flip through his book at Costco (they restocked it) is all that is needed to observe the same tired, old fallacies and poor reasoning. A very quick analysis in no particular order  reveals:

1 - D’Souza criticizes Obama and social progressives for trying to install an all-watching, all-knowing government whose mission is to keep us all ‘safe’ for our own good, nevermind that it was Bush Jr. who signed the Patriot Act into law. Hmm, sounds like Cherry-picking to me. Yeah, you’re never going to see D’Souza criticize Republicans who actions harm the country. It’s just that goddamn all-powerful Obama and those 900 Executive Orders. Nevermind that this number is an out and out lie and that currently the last Prez, Bush Jr., has signed more Executive Orders. 2 – The U.S. is set for a radical cultural change (and by extension, political change) that will demolish traditional American values. First, traditional values doesn't mean those values are inherently good. Second, the U.S. today is radically different than the U.S. in 1950, which was radically different form the U.S. in 1900, which was radically different from…Wow, D’Souza is a visionary. 3 – D’Souza implies that (the philosopher) Foucault’s political philosophies are mistaken by invoking Foucalt’s sex life. Ad hominem and genetic fallacies. 4 – The U.S. should not be morally condemned for conquering America and taking it from Native Americans since conquering other peoples is simply how humanity operates. On this account, I don’t see why D’Souza is upset by the growth and progress of social liberals in the U.S. since this is simply how humans operate. 5 – The U.S. is in decline, basically on all accounts, nevermind that this has been the case long before D’Souza came on the scene. So, again, not prophetic. The idea of “American Exceptionalism” was never real to begin with, but apparently no one told D’Souza. 6 – D’Souza decries the loss of the Constitution’s real meaning, where all men were created equal except slaves, while at the same time condemning slavery; these are internally inconsistent viewpoints. (At least we agree that reparations for slavery should not be paid.)

Most of us know D’Souza’s history as an immigrant who came to the U.S. and “made it” though he “made it” by basically believing and espousing all the things old white men with power believe and espouse. If someone like D’Souza “makes it” but is on the other side of the political spectrum, D’Souza regards that person as a threat to the U.S., nevermind that such success is what D’Souza is supposed to love about the U.S. I guess, but success only on his terms. 

[Oh, and btw, D'Souza pleaded guilty to illegal campaign contributions in May 2014. Way to display good ol' American values, Dinesh.]