#and in the issue after this Bruce specifically rejects that as an acceptable solution because he wants to be a regular human

[daydreamerdrew]

The Incredible Hulk (1968) #267

[philosopherking1887]

Philosophy in “Infinity War” Part I: Thanos vs. Ultron

As promised, I’m going to start talking about some of the philosophical issues raised in Avengers: Infinity War, and this first one gives me an opportunity to discuss something I’ve meant to for a while: why I find Ultron so interesting. Spoilers and long discussion are under the cut.

We find out in IW that Thanos wants to kill half of the living things in the universe because of his views about overpopulation and scarcity, which align with those of Thomas Malthus: that populations will always tend to expand beyond the means of society to provide for them, resulting in poverty, disease, and conflict. Malthus, of course, never proposed mass murder as a way to prevent these terrible outcomes, though he did think that famine and war, as the natural consequences of overpopulation, were God’s and/or nature’s way of correcting the problem -- and of (futilely) cautioning humanity against reproducing beyond its means. We also find out that Thanos arrived at these views based on harsh experience: his home planet, Titan, experienced ecological catastrophe as a result of overpopulation. Thanos warned his people as the catastrophe approached and proposed his solution -- random culling of the population -- but he was, of course, dismissed as a madman. He now lives (sometimes) on the lifeless, desert-like ruins of Titan, applies his solution to planets that he thinks are reproducing beyond their means -- including Gamora’s home planet -- and seeks the Infinity Stones so that he can apply it to the universe as a whole.

It seems obvious to me -- and should be obvious to him -- that this is only a temporary solution. He claims that the standard of living on Gamora’s home planet improved dramatically after he halved its population; but if that’s the case, then unless Thanos was also distributing free birth control and family planning education, people would just take advantage of their new prosperity to have more children. Maybe with all the Infinity Stones in the Gauntlet, he envisioned himself or one of his disciples doing The Snap every few centuries?

I’ve seen some commentary suggesting that Thanos’s outlook is only comprehensible or even remotely sympathetic from a very pro-capitalist standpoint which ignores the fact that capitalism generates artificial scarcity. There’s certainly something to that criticism; “Malthusian” views are usually dismissed in the same breath as “social Darwinism” as artifacts of 19th-century and/or mid-20th-century elitist, racist, greed-driven ideology. I think there’s a reason Titan’s demise was depicted as an ecological catastrophe, considering the looming threat of climate change. Burning fossil fuels was a major part of how humanity harnessed the energy resources to be able to overcome natural scarcity, and now it’s biting us in the ass. That said, the technological advances that were enabled by the burning of fossil fuels for energy would probably enable us to stop burning fossil fuels if not for vested financial interests. And since population growth declines dramatically as societies become better educated and have more gender equality, it seems like it should be possible to stabilize a planet’s population so that it never exceeds the ecosystem’s ability to sustain it without resorting to mass murder. So yes, Thanos’s perspective and imagination seem extremely limited, and he’s drawing the wrong lesson from what happened to Titan. I guess he’s just really pessimistic about any society’s ability to overcome greed and education inequality...?

Thanos’s philosophical reasons for supporting mass murder of course call to mind another villain with philosophical reasons for mass murder (indeed, specicide, if that’s a word): Ultron. Predictably, I think Ultron makes much better points than Thanos does because they’re founded on observations about human nature rather than speculation about economic necessity. From looking at all of recorded human history, Ultron concludes that humanity has no moral right to exist because human beings have always, everywhere, been horrible to each other. If we solved all the scarcity problems that motivate Thanos, that would probably cut down on violence, but it would not eliminate it. I’m not at all sure that it’s possible to civilize human beings to the point that violence, small-scale or large-scale, never happens. That’s why Ultron says that humanity “needs to evolve”: human nature would have to change fundamentally in order to prevent the horrors that have littered human history.

Of course there’s a moral question here: is it morally right to eliminate a kind of being whose existence is, on the whole, an evil, or does it incur rights simply in virtue of existing? Pretty clearly, Ultron (like Thanos) is making a utilitarian calculation: cause a moderate amount of suffering in the short term in order to prevent a greater amount of suffering over the long term. But is that an acceptable trade-off, when those who enjoy the benefits are not the same as those who bear the costs? This issue -- consequentialist vs. deontological (i.e., rights-based, rule-based) ethics -- is the same one that’s explored in Watchmen, where Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias represents consequentialism and Rorschach (Mr. Black and White) represents deontology. In the MCU, Tony seems to represent the consequentialist perspective while Steve represents the deontologist; this is especially clear in IW with all that “we don’t trade lives” stuff (which I’ll have to discuss in more detail later). I myself don’t come down on either side all the time; I think it depends on the scale of decision-making. When you’re in a position of authority over large numbers of people, you’re going to have to make some consequentialist calculations; but in small-scale interpersonal interactions, you should operate like a deontologist. Tony thinks on the large scale and in the long term; Steve treats everything like an interpersonal interaction. But even on the large scale, there are times when consequentialist calculations lead to (what seem to us like) horrific conclusions. Tony has a human moral compass that allows him to avoid those; Ultron represents Tony’s consequentialist instincts writ large, with no human emotions to keep them in check. But there’s another question here: are our emotions a moral correcting mechanism, or do they impair our judgment? Would machines actually be better moral reasoners than human beings?

Ultron’s conclusion also raises a couple of interesting issues from a specifically Nietzschean perspective: one (meta)ethical and one metaphysical. (I’m not sure whether it’s a coincidence that Ultron quotes Nietzsche: “Like the man said, ‘Whatever doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger.’”) The (meta)ethical issue (I’m calling it that because it doesn’t fit cleanly into either normative ethics or metaethics as practiced in contemporary philosophy, which is clearly a limitation of contemporary philosophy) is the one that motivates Nietzsche’s main philosophical project: If the (Christian-descended) morality of compassion and altruism -- a morality that says that suffering and domination are the most terrible things, constituting an argument against the existence of anything that perpetuates them -- leads us to the conclusion that humanity, or life in general, ought not to exist, then why should we buy into the morality of compassion? One man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens -- which, in English, translates to: one person who sees that a set of premises leads to a conclusion will just accept the conclusion; but another, finding the conclusion unacceptable, will instead reject one of the premises. Ultron, it seems, does not know how to reject the premise of the morality of compassion -- and that is almost certainly because it’s part of what Tony and Bruce programmed into him. His purpose was to protect human beings from suffering and domination by preventing alien invasion; the assumption that violence, war, and conquest are bad is fundamental to his very existence. Put in the facts of human history -- which make the prospects for an end to these things seem very dim -- and consequentialist reasoning rules, and you get the conclusion he in fact comes to.

Vision seems to express a quasi-Nietzschean attitude in his conversation with Ultron toward the end: “Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites, and try to control what won’t be. But there is grace in their failings. ... A thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts.” It’s interesting to me that Vision uses aesthetic terms in defense of humanity rather than moral ones. That’s another theme you find throughout Nietzsche’s writings. In The Birth of Tragedy (1872) he claims (under the influence of Wagner), “it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified”; by The Gay Science (1882), he has retreated to “As an aesthetic phenomenon existence is still bearable for us.” The world is not and cannot be good by the standards of the morality of compassion; suffering and exploitation are woven into its very fabric. The same is very likely true of humanity (and Nietzsche also thinks we wouldn’t like the result if humanity ever became entirely “good” in that sense...). If we judge them only by the standards of morality, they will always fall short; we must conclude that they are, on the whole, bad things, things that should not be. But humanity and existence can still be aesthetically interesting, even beautiful, in their mix of good and evil, smart and stupid, order and chaos.

The metaphysical question is: in what sense does the replacement of carbon-based human animals by robots count as an “evolution” of humanity rather than simply its extinction and the ascendance of something completely different? The movie encourages us to think about inheritance and legacy in nonstandard ways, most obviously by framing Ultron as Tony’s “child”: Ultron has learned some things from Tony and inherited some things from him via programming -- and we are now accustomed to thinking of genetics as a kind of natural “programming.” Tony even calls Ultron “Junior” and says “You’re going to break your old man’s heart.” By extension, then, AI is the “child” of humanity in general, its “brainchild” -- an expression that reflects how common procreation and childbirth metaphors are in talk of intellectual creativity (that’s all over the place in Nietzsche’s writing, btw). But the extreme difference between biological humanity and its AI “descendants” highlights a distinctively Nietzschean theme: the idea that success, for a species, is not a matter of its persistence in the same form, but of its “self-overcoming” (that’s an ideal that comes up a lot, for individuals as well as cultures and species). Often this means that the majority will have to perish, while only an unusual few survive: the mutants, the evolutionary vanguard (LOL, there’s another Marvel franchise...), the ones who are better adapted to changing conditions rather than the old environment that the species had previously been adapted for. The successor species might look very different from its progenitor species, even unrecognizable, but the former is still the legacy of the latter. What’s important is the survival of a lineage rather than the persistence of a type.

[junker-town]

Andre Drummond’s hot start only raises more questions

Andre Drummond is having a career year for the Pistons.

The Pistons’ big man is having a career year. Can we trust it?

The NBA is littered with players who stifle their own talent. Plenty good enough to dominate their role, they misunderstand/outright reject who they are, and how they can best impact winning. Andre Drummond has been on this list for most of his career, but right now it’s worth wondering if he’s nearing off it.

Nine games into his eighth season, Drummond is averaging 22 points — a personal best by a significant margin — and has never been more efficient. He leads the league in minutes, and only Giannis Antetokounmpo has made more baskets. Drummond’s rebounding has always been comically dominant, but right now the gap between him and everybody else is over 50 boards. At 26 years old, he’s already the best rebounder of his generation, and it’s not particularly close.

All these stats are amazing, but it’s too early to call them a revelation, or use them to erase the myriad questions that still contaminate Drummond’s overall effect. Even if they sustain, there’s a harmful insecurity in Drummond’s game that has increasingly led him outside the lane any competitive team would prefer he stay in. The putbacks, one-dribble drop steps, and picks that peel defenders off teammates are all helpful.

But for every sign of progress — he’s shooting a career-best 67.3 percent from the free-throw line and the percentage of his possessions that end as a roll man are currently double what they’ve been over the past few years! — there lies a hideous push shot, unnecessary foul, or forced foray into a reminder that every player has their limit. Right now Drummond averages more seconds and dribbles per touch than every other center except Julius Randle — aka more than Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Anthony Davis. This should not be.

“Every year, [Drummond] is going to bring something new to the table,” Pistons head coach Dwane Casey recently told reporters. On its face that’s not a bad thing. But just because he wants to moonlight as a point guard and shoot threes doesn’t mean he should. Take whatever it is Drummond tried to do here — which was followed by a booming and hilarious HELL NO from the Wizards bench — as an example. Sequences like this have not been rare this season:

Not all of this is his fault. Drummond is compelled by a roster that’s been ravaged by injuries to several important pieces, including Blake Griffin, Derrick Rose, and Reggie Jackson. Last year, the Pistons fell apart on offense when Griffin played without Drummond; lineups featuring both were as efficient as the Milwaukee Bucks. Now, surrounded by Markieff Morris, Bruce Brown, and Tony Snell, opportune moments are unavoidable. It’s hard to get mad when he rumbles coast-to-coast for an and-one or pings a perfect bounce pass from the elbow. And there’s value in Drummond reminding defenses they aren’t facing Rudy Gobert:

Parsing productive growth from self-serving desire isn’t easy, though, especially in an NBA that’s trending towards generalists and away from niche skill-sets. Common sense would tell you that it’s beneficial to have Drummond explore different ways he can impact a game. But too much of what he does has the feel of a high-school student skipping their actual homework assignment to do extra credit.

When he sticks to what he’s great at, you can’t help but wonder how he’d do surrounded by players who fill in the areas he wants to occupy. Picture Drummond injected into a reality-check ecosystem that doesn’t let him test drive skills that belong in a garage. If he can ever self-simplify his responsibilities, opt to maximize what he already does well, and, you know, try harder, that’s a wrecking ball.

That expectation is a leap of faith against over 17,000 minutes of evidence; Drummond is -374 for his career. Context regardless, it’s OK to think he’ll never reach whatever ceiling many believed he had after his first couple seasons. At the same time, it’s also OK to believe the trajectory of his career will eventually tick up once he accepts who he is. That type of power is undeniably important.

Drummond sprints the floor when there’s a carrot at the end of a stick. He’ll outrun his man, seek contact for the seal, make himself a target, then finish strong at the rim. Hurray. Unfortunately, every compliment is accompanied by a catch. Beyond his impaired technical prowess, Drummond’s energy level fluctuates with infuriating regularity: It’s hard to embrace a defensive identity when your starting center refuses to sprint back in transition.

Drummond compounds the issue by spending a good chunk of his minutes in foul trouble, a habit that tampers down those fiery moments that are hard to forget. When active and committed, he’s a nightmare in the paint.

It’s all very tantalizing, and not seeing him play that way from possession to possession, let alone quarter to quarter or game to game is what makes Drummond such an exasperating figure. It also makes you wonder what he could do as the third wheel on a different team, one able to harness all his strengths the right way.

A trade feels highly unlikely anytime soon. Detroit’s owner, Tom Gores, loves Drummond. But when asked about the organization’s path one month ago, Gores also said “I think right now we feel really good about where we’re at. Obviously, we have to succeed and win, and judge by if we’re not winning. But right now we feel really good about it.”

The Pistons have tread water without Griffin, and if barely making/missing the playoffs is how they want their foreseeable future to go, they’ll sit tight with them both. But logic suggests a shakeup at some point. And if Drummond continues to produce at a rate unseen since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, will Gores sell high?

Chances are it won’t matter. Drummond can exercise a $28.5 million player option and become a free agent this summer. It’s hard to imagine any playoff team 1) believing he can push them over the top, while 2) sacrificing enough assets to make a trade worth Detroit’s while.

For fun, though, there are a few teams that should poke around, pending their own need to shake things up/prepare for a lengthy playoff run. Drummond makes conceivable sense on every team in Texas. It’s way too early for any one of them to bend over backwards in a negotiation, but perhaps Detroit will listen if the Houston Rockets ever feel desperate enough to offer Clint Capela. The Pistons do it to receive a cheaper big under team control through 2023 who has extensive playoff experience and can either be flipped down the line or seen as part of their inevitable rebuild. Future picks, of which Houston barely has, would need to be involved, but Drummond is a much better player; if the Rockets want to go all-in (again), this sort of talent upgrade makes sense.

What if the San Antonio Spurs push Patty Mills, Rudy Gay, Lonnie Walker IV, and their 2020 first towards the middle of the table? Their spacing would be even more cramped but assuming Gregg Popovich can turn Drummond into the consistent center his talent suggests he can still be, that’s an intimidating frontline. If the Spurs like what they see and can keep Drummond motivated, they can phase into their next era with him and Dejounte Murray leading the way.

It’s hard to see the Dallas Mavericks interrupt their momentum for someone who probably wouldn’t close games, but just picture Luka Doncic running a stagger pick-and-roll with Drummond and Kristaps Porzingis. One pops and the other rolls. How do you guard that? (Sadly, the Mavs also don’t have much to offer beyond Dwight Powell, an expiring contract, and Jalen Brunson.)

There are other teams that would have theoretical interest — like the Los Angeles Clippers and Boston Celtics — but none are realistic enough to write about. If Drummond chooses to text the market this summer, would the Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, or Cleveland Cavaliers bite?

What it all comes down to is situation, fit, and how dominant Drummond can still be if he’s willing to embrace a specific role. Despite his jaw-dropping numbers right now, it’s impossible to say he’s part of any short or long-term solution where he is. Including this year, Detroit’s defense is annually not good when he plays, and in eight seasons he’s only appeared in eight playoff games.

Something has to eventually break. Until it does, the Pistons will take the good with the bad, even though change feels like it’d do both sides a world of good.

[newstfionline]

Having trouble getting a job as an older worker? This woman has some advice.

David Hugh Smith, CS Monitor, May 4, 2017

WASHINGTON--Two years ago, Elizabeth White hit a wall.

For years she’d earned a six-digit income. Work was easy to find; she has a Master of Business Administration from Harvard and a master’s in international studies from Johns Hopkins University.

But then everything changed. Organizations weren’t responding to her job applications. They weren’t impressed she’d worked for the World Bank and had run her own retail business.

Ms. White exudes energy and grace. She looks much younger than you might expect a person in her early 60s to look. And she is the quintessential “smartest person in the room.”

But White says her qualifications are ignored because “there’s rampant age discrimination.” Meanwhile, “it doesn’t matter how you look because when you apply online ... you can’t hide when you graduated.” Nonetheless, she kept up appearances, didn’t tell her friends she was in trouble, and pretended things were normal--until she couldn’t.

White came out by writing an essay for the public-television website Next Avenue. She wrote about people like herself whose phones don’t “ring with opportunities anymore” and who are struggling just to pay the phone bill.

After an enthusiastic response, and wanting to do more, she wrote a book, published late last year: “Fifty-Five, Unemployed, and Faking Normal.”

“Fifty-Five” compassionately identifies issues that older workers face--issues such as unemployment, job discrimination, and financial insecurity. It gives voice to their stories. Then it suggests steps for restoring what White calls “a richly textured life.”

A key theme is to not be “faking normal.” Another is to realize “we are not alone.... [T]here are millions of us.” Another is to “get rid of the magical thinking” that society is somehow going to provide a solution.

White has many recommendations for older people who aren’t finding work: Be willing to participate in the so-called gig economy. Cobble together multiple income streams. And get off your throne--don’t be snobbish about the work you accept.

Bottom line, it’s important to cultivate “an entrepreneurial mind-set,” which to White means being “open to doing things we’ve never done before.” She did this herself when she examined the skills she had to offer and decided to write her book.

Donna Satterthwaite, interim executive director of Senior Service America, an organization that helps older workers with employment needs, says by email: “Her advice is clear and forthright: Avoid denial, reassess reality, adjust to one’s new status, strategize.... Do not give up hope. Instead, take charge of your new reality and learn how to live in your new normal.”

White also packed “Fifty-Five” with lists of resources--organizations offering help with employment and supply issues. Since it’s a self-published, print-on-demand book, she can keep these resources up to date.

Juan Laster embodies a willingness to adapt. A woman in her 60s who has a master’s degree in business education and worked for years in corporate administration, Ms. Laster now juggles part-time jobs. She calls “Fifty-Five” a “survival kit ... a reference book [that] should be in everyone’s back pocket.” She strongly agrees with White’s principle of not “faking normal”: “I’m not here to impress anyone.”

Laster has segued to being a community advocate for seniors. She also organizes offices. One time she even seized the opportunity to clean someone’s home for $200. Then she celebrated with a meal at her favorite restaurant and put the rest of the money in the bank.

A related, basic theme in White’s book is “smalling up”--being willing to “live more frugally and to redefine what is enough.”

Smalling up can mean new approaches to housing, often a person’s largest expense. She suggests living in a smaller home--perhaps even a “tiny house”--sharing a home, or possibly trying a communal living arrangement. In “Fifty-Five,” she recommends asking oneself: “What do you really need to feel deeply grounded and content?”

White practices thriftiness herself in Adams Morgan, the now-trendy neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where she’s lived for many years. “Enough” for her includes driving a Fiat the size of a Bobby Car around a neighborhood filled with young professionals driving larger, fancier cars. She also “shop[s] in her closet”--wears the beautiful clothes she bought years ago when earning a generous income.

A visitor to the area recently tagged along for a few days to watch White in action. On the first morning, she drove her Fiat to the local university to meet with appreciative students she’d taught retail marketing to. Though teaching is not well paid, it helps others, and it’s one of White’s income streams.

Next, it was off to the gym at a community center where she works out. It’s grittier than the boutique gyms she used to be able to afford. But it’s clean and bright--and it’s free.

Perhaps most significant, White attended a get-together of older women at The Potter’s House, a funky bookstore and cafe that White calls her “living room.”

A central recommendation White makes is to form “resilience circles”--support groups--specifically for employment and financial challenges. In her book she says, “It’s hard to navigate these waters alone.... Peer-to-peer support can keep you even keeled and open to possibility.”

The group at Potter’s chewed over the difficulties that older women encounter in finding work. Christina, the meeting organizer, commented, “To get a job in D.C., it’s very difficult if you are over 35.”

Christina, who is in her early 50s and didn’t want her real name used because of career concerns, worked for many years as a lobbyist and had no problem getting jobs when she was younger. Circles “help you build that resilience,” she says. They provide ideas and are a place where “we build each other up and remind each other what we are good at.”

“Older workers are overrepresented among the long-term unemployed,” says Laurie McCann, senior attorney with AARP Foundation Litigation. “It takes them much longer to find a job, and more often than not when they do ... it’s for significantly less money than they were making before.”

Bruce, who asked for his last name to be withheld because of career concerns, was a media writer and producer in New York. “People don’t realize how hard it is ... to deal with incessant rejection,” he says. His friends who are “in the same struggle” reassure each other that “you are the same [competent professional]. Nothing has changed.”

From his perspective, “This is an economic phenomenon [involving] changing technology, changing corporate values ... changes in ethics.” White, he adds, “break[s] new ground.... She gets it.”

White’s own career has morphed into being an advocate and adviser for older workers--along with doing other work that feeds her income stream. She’d also like to collaborate with institutions and companies to create a world that better fits seniors.

“No one expected to be jettisoned out of the workforce 10 years before retirement,” White says. “That is traumatic for people.... This book is an invitation to turn around and look at what’s in front for you.”