SOPA, PIPA, and Other Things That Sound Like Baby-Talk

Faithful Stationary Waves reader IL asks:

Why haven't you written about SOPA? Shouldn't it be a Things That Used To Be Legal?

Technically, no... not yet. Until the legislation passes, it's more of a "things that will soon be illegal." That said, IL is right. The SOPA/PIPA issue is certainly an issue that falls within the scope of the blog. Why haven't I written about the issue yet?

One reason I haven't written about SOPA is because I see the legislation as being totally inevitable. I'm not a pessimist, but my past experience with all-things-federal-legislation leads me to believe that there is no point protesting "raising awareness about" the issue. This legislation will pass. The question is not if, but when.

Another question might be, why will this legislation pass?

The Great IP Debate
The answer is that virtually everyone in the world believes that "Intellectual Property," ("IP" in the libertarian vernacular) copyrights, patents, etc. needs to be protected.

Arguments in favor of laws protecting IP are typically based on the claim that unless we grant monopoly protection to the originator of an idea, no one will have any incentive to ever come up with an idea. Whether or not you agree with this claim, the simple fact of the matter is that the evidence that backs up this claim is truthfully very weak. It is difficult if not impossible to empirically demonstrate that no good ideas would ever be had if we opted out of granting monopoly protection to the originators of ideas.

On the other hand, there is certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence in support of the claim that ideas (and markets, and profits) flourish when patents are eliminated. A really great anecdotal example of this is the Chinese black market. There, you can find piles and piles of "cheap Chinese knock-offs." The thing is, those "cheap Chinese knock-offs" are really just "inexpensive Chinese knock-offs." In other words, they are in every way identical to their "genuine" counterparts, at a fraction of the price.

And we're not just talking about clothing here. There are great knock-offs of electronics, computers, phones, pharmaceuticals, and so forth. The question is, if someone manages to produce a great shirt or a great phone, why shouldn't they be allowed to sell it?

The only argument that has ever been put forth against this question is the idea that if Chinese knock-offs were allowed to flourish, poor Gloria Vanderbilt or Ralph Lauren would no longer have financial incentives to manufacture their own designs. But does anyone actually believe this?

Goodwill: Capitalism's Forgotten Middle Child
In the world that existed prior to Pat Riley's trademark on the portmanteau "three-peat," companies used to actively pursue an intangible market asset called goodwill.

Of course, the idiocy of the accounting industry has turned the concept of goodwill into little more than a slack variable that sops up any amount of business valuation that cannot be fully accounted-for by financial statements. (These folks have virtually no cognitive time-horizon whatsoever.)

Originally, though, everyone knew what goodwill was. Goodwill is your ability to know with certainty that when you walk into a Starbuck's and place an order, you will get a Starbuck's-quality cup of coffee every time. There may be other, superior coffee shops out there, but none with the same level of goodwill enjoyed by Starbuck's.

What this means is that when you find yourself in a strange city and you want a cup of coffee, you don't have to "guess" about the quality of a local coffee shop. You can go straight for the Starbuck's brand and know exactly what you can expect.

There is nothing stopping Ralph Lauren from acquiring true goodwill without IP monopoly protection. What that would require is that Ralph Lauren's clothing would have to be of a cut and quality that justified its comparatively higher price. People would need to acquire confidence (earned by hard work on Ralph Lauren's part) that each and every time they purchase a Ralph Lauren garment, they're getting something that will last a long time and that will remain in style for more than a single season.

You see, someone might be able to roast a coffee bean as well as Starbuck's. They might even be able to come up with a roast that tasted identical to a popular Starbuck's blend. But unless they put in the hard work winning over customers by offering a superior product at an attractive price, they will never acquire the same level of goodwill enjoyed by Starbuck's.

Clothing counterfeiters (and, for that matter, producers of generic pharmaceuticals) may very well be able to copy an existing product exactly. But unless they are capable of offering a consistently good-quality product at an attractive price, they will never win market share over their "reference product."

Similarly, I can learn how to play all of Prince's songs, hit the club scene and aim for fortune and fame; but I will never be as good a musician, songwriter, and performer as Prince, so I will never be able to "steal" Prince's music from the standpoint of real market share and comparability. I need goodwill to do that. I need to be as original and virtuosic as Prince. That's the difference.

Conclusiong
Goodwill, when allowed to flourish, makes or breaks a producer in a way that "Intellectual Property" will never be able to do. At best, these government monopoly protections are a pale imitation of what free markets produce on their own, naturally.

At worst, these monopoly protections will squash the few remaining freedoms we enjoy today, all in the name of protecting millionaire film makers who already receive sizable federal grants to produce movies that simply aren't as fun as they used to be.

But there is no point protesting. The lobbyists always win. They can win the legal battle, but please do not allow them to win the philosophical battle. There is no tenable argument in favor of intellectual property. Remember this, and remember that in absence of intellectual property, we have something better: Goodwill.

Note: I have provided Wikipedia links in this article in solidarity against SOPA. 

Theory And Practice, Episode One

Originally published at SweetTalkConversation.com

I need to make a point about something, but as it turns out, it’s impossible to make this point in a single blog post. So I’ll have to do this on an installment plan.

Adventures In Comparative Legal Systems

When I lived in Canada, I used to hang out with a lot of law students. During that time, the conversation would inevitably turn to Canadian law. By this, I mean that they were often doing their homework right in front of me, and I was helping them with it. So it was a bit more than just casual conversation.

And in case you’re wondering, the answer is: Yes, my experience tells me that most law school homework is done in a pub over multiple pitchers of beer.

Anyway, one of the things that struck me about the Canadian legal system is the way human rights are organized, legally speaking. Canada has what’s called the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is analogous to the American Bill of Rights. It spells out what rights are guaranteed to the people by the government. The Canadian government, according to Canadian law, is permitted to violate the Charter in certain cases, as long as the details of those cases conform to certain legal guidelines, which are spelled out in writing and in jurisprudence.

As a fiery young, philosophical man, this used to incense me. After all, the Bill of Rights is a document that outlines things that the U.S. federal government is not permitted to do. In other words, the presumption here in the United States is that human beings hold certain inalienable rights that supersede any additional legal power. In Canada, subject to legal conventions, it is the government that grants all rights to the people, so government powers supersede the rights of the people.

I say it used to make me incensed. It doesn’t anymore. Why not? Because while studying the law alongside my friends, I eventually learned that in practice the Canadian legal system reaches the same important conclusions regarding human rights as the American legal system.

The only material difference in these matters is the language used to justify the conclusion. In America, our courts tend to use language that refers to what the government cannot do, and what the intended meaning of legislation is. In Canada, their courts tend to use language that refers to what the government is permitted to do and whether the intended meaning of the legislation provides sufficient justification for doing it.

But, as I said, when it comes to everything that matters on human rights issues, the two countries’ legal systems tend to reach the same conclusions, even though their justifications are phrased differently.

What’s the Point, Ryan?

I bring this up because one of the least attractive things about philosophy is that it tends to raise objections that need not be raised.

We see a homeless man shivering outside a coffee shop with an outstretched arm holding a cup. Most people I know who have spare change will drop a few coins in the man’s cup. Of those who do, some of them do so for reasons of faith, some of them do so for reasons of utility maximization, some of them do it for reasons of virtue. And, yes, some of them do it for reasons of guilt, shame, embarrassment, or to help clear their conscience.

I know a few people who would choose not to help the man. They all refuse to do it for various reasons, but no matter what their moral philosophy happens to be, they all justify their decision on moral terms. Maybe they want to give the man incentive to get a job. Maybe they think someone else is more deserving. Maybe they think the man will spend the money contrary to his own best interests, i.e. on drugs or alcohol.

Philosophy tends to raise objections that need not be raised. If you and I both give the man our spare change, there is no point arguing over which one of us had the better moral reasoning: the outcome was the same, ergo our reasoning was equal. You can say this however you like: what matter are results; actions speak louder than words; practice is more relevant than theory.

What matters outside of that coffee shop is not the spotless philosophical reasoning used to justify a particular course of action, but rather what we choose to do. If I give the old man my spare change for totally incomprehensible and inconsistent reasons “which, if taken to their natural conclusion…” would destroy the world I don’t care. Neither does the old man. Because the outcome of my moral reasoning was the same as if I had used a superior moral framework (or aneven more inferior one): the man got his money and the world is still intact.

Now, if a particular philosophy fails to produce the right results, or fails to produce them consistently, then we have a good reason to evaluate the coherence of that philosophy and address its shortcomings. (More on that in a forthcoming post.) But if I’m giving my change to deserving old men, my friends and family are happy with me, and I am generally impacting the world in a positive way, whatever crazy and internally inconsistent moral framework I’m working with is working for me/paying rent.

If we raise objections to “wrong” thinking that consistently yields “right” results, then maybe it’s time we checked our premises.

Things That Used to Be Legal

Photo courtesy RedBull.com

Today I introduce a new blog feature called Things That Used to Be Legal.The purpose of this blog feature is to attempt to capture a record of things that were legal during my lifetime, which were made illegal during that same lifetime.

Now, I won't be going back in time for this feature, because that would be too big an undertaking. Many things have been outlawed or regulated out of existence during my thirty-two years on Earth. I couldn't possibly pay tribute to each of those things separately. In honor of their former legality, however, I can attempt to keep a record of things made illegal going forward.

Given current governmental trends, I have no reason to believe that one country's or state's ruling is independent of another's. In other words, as soon as one government makes something illegal, the others will soon follow suit. Therefore, I will not wait until the item in question completely disappears before I record it on my blog. As evidence for this, I note that Denmark's new fat tax is currently being debated in Ontario. Suffice it to say, it is only a matter of time before revenue-hungry Ontario Gub-Monkeys follow Denmark's lead.

Red Bull? More Like Red Herring
Today's edition features Canada's recent decision to subject "energy drinks" such as Red Bull to the same kind of regulations "Ethical" class pharmaceutical products face.

What that means in plain language is that it must now be sold in the same location as insulin, Epi-Pens, and the morning after pill.

When Red Bull first appeared on the market, I was in high school. There were all sorts of interesting animated commercials about how "Red Bull gives you wings." People weren't sure what to think about it, in general. I remember one time I played a gig with a band I was in, and the bassist bought us all a can of Red Bull for the show. I had mine afterward. It tasted sweet, I actually quite liked the taste. But there wasn't very much in the can, and I was thirsty.

After drinking it, I felt no surge of energy whatsoever. I didn't actually expect to. I am an avid coffee and soda drinker, and caffeine's impact on me has been very minimal throughout my lifetime. It doesn't keep me awake, it doesn't increase my blood pressure. Occasionally, it reduces the efficacy of my mealtime insulin, but even then it doesn't really impact my body so much as my medication's efficacy.

That one can of Red Bull remains the one and only can of "energy drink" I have ever consumed. It tasted good, but wasn't worth the price, in my opinion. I'd rather buy a larger bottle of cola than a smaller can of Red Bull. It's a personal preference thing.

Over the years, Red Bull gained a following as a cocktail mixer. This makes sense to me because it tastes good, and it's fizzy, like ginger ale, cola, tonic, and other mixers. I never assumed people were mixing it for the effects of the caffeine, so much as because it was something different. When I was a kid, they used to have a soft drink called Jolt that had a lot of caffeine in it, but no one called it an "energy drink." I figured Red Bull was pretty much the same thing. The caffeine content was pretty much all hype.

Over the last couple of years, many news reports have come out about the supposed "dangers" of mixing alcohol and caffeine. Having read these reports, I cannot help but conclude that kids have been binge drinking just as they have for literal centuries. Kids have always been binge drinkers, because they're immature. Red Bull is nothing more than a scapegoat in this case.

It doesn't matter, however. In a few years no one will even remember what life was like before energy drinks were made "illegal" via back-door regulations that supercede the legislative process. All of this will be a distant memory.

Except, of course, that I will remember, and will have made note of it on my blog.

Things That Used To Be Legal

Courtesy BrandChannel.com

The New York Times has the report:

Seeking to reduce runaway obesity rates, the New York City Board of Health on Thursday approved a ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, street carts and movie theaters, the first restriction of its kind in the country.

As I argued in a previous installment, once something is illegal somewhere, it is only a matter of time before it is illegal elsewhere. New York City's ban on soda is, therefore, merely the first instance of what will soon become a widespread phenomenon.

There has been a huge public relations effort up to this point. We have been talking about it for a very long time. There have been scholarly journal articles arguing for the ban, doctors' associations arguing for the ban, politicians arguing for the ban.

From every angle, the discussion has always centered around the following argument: (a) The US is experiencing an "obesity epidemic" and a "diabetes epidemic," (b) All other things being equal, drinking large amounts of soda increases one's risk for obesity and diabetes, (c) Therefore, soda should be banned.

QED.

Well, what's to be argued with? That soda - especially in large quantities - is unhealthy is an objective fact. That there are rising rates of obesity and diabetes prevalence in the United States is simply and plainly true. On these things, there can be no dispute.

Opponents of the ban have always argued that a ban on soda is the epitome of the Nanny State. It used to be a joke, you know. People used to say things like, "What's next, a ban on soda?" The belief had been, until recently, that people should be persuaded not to do stupid, unhealthy things, rather than forced to conform to medical standards. The broader context here, though, is that we Americans are progressively becoming total wards of the state, and that means that if we engage in activities that cost the state money, the state will get angry at us and force us to stop.

Who is the state? Who is the government? There seems to be a vague impression that "we all are," but specifically who do we mean? Whose idea is it to force us to conform to a soda quota, and how did that person gain greater access to the corridors of power than the rest of us, who are more than happy to leave each other alone?

More importantly, if we really are a society that believes in the principle of "my body, my decision" then how is a ban like this even remotely tenable?

The answers to questions like these are irrelevant. In a short while, no one will remember what it was like to have the ability to purchase large quantities of the controlled substance known as soda pop. Coffee shops will experience a huge windfall as people spend their dollars on substitute goods that come in smaller sizes, and in time we will become a more coffee-oriented society than a softdrink-oriented society. The next generation will not know about Big Gulps. All will be forgotten.

Well, almost all. I will still remember, and I will have made note of how things used to be, right here on my blog.

Things That Used to Be Legal

Photo courtesy IslandSunTanningBeds.com

Loyal Stationary Waves reader SM tipped me off to a recent California law passed to protect children from the harmful effects of artificial tanning. (Here's a fun bit of tangential trivia: SM was there when I drank my first can of Red Bull, as described in the last episode of Things That Used to Be Legal.) This new law supercedes the existing California law requiring parental consent be given before a child can use a tanning bed.

It is my belief that every silly paternalistic law that gets placed on the books is the product of some sort of special interest group. But who in their right minds would have a vested interest in placing restrictions on the artificial tanning industry? As The Sacramento Bee reports, "Senate Bill 746, by Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, was supported by doctors, nurses and the American Cancer Society." 

No word yet as to whether doctors, nurses, and the American Cancer Society have initiated a legal campaign against children getting more than fifteen minutes of sunlight in a day. Of course, we already know what their recommendations are. According to the American Cancer Society, you should limit your exposure to sunlight during "midday," where "midday" is defined to be any time between the hours of 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM.

Naturally, this recommendation includes a link to the Environmental Protection Agency's website.

It took me a sum total of about 60 seconds to trace California's new law to an existing government agency.

I have never used a tanning bed, but I know people who have. As a child, I spent lots of time outdoors in the sunshine, and I continue to do so as an adult. It is possible that I will get skin cancer some day. Can we conclusively say that if I get skin cancer it will be the result of a lifetime of occasional mild sunburns? I suppose so; where else does one get skin cancer?

It certainly wouldn't be caused by sun screen, moisturizer, and other such cosmetic skin care products, would it? Certainly not, because of course such products already fall under federal regulatory jurisdiction, so there is no reason to enact further legislation at this time.

What about the benefits of tanning? Tanning beds were invented by a German scientist studying the health benefits of ultraviolet light radiation on athletes. Ultraviolet radiation is used in phototherapy treatments for patients with acne and psoriasis. While researching psoriasis in my former life as a pharmaceutical research consultant, I once learned that doctors often recommend that patients take some time off once year, leave their medications at home, and get plenty of summer sunlight. There is also plenty of evidence suggesting that UV light exposure suppresses melatonin and aids in the treatment of depression.

In the State of California - and soon the world over - children will, by law, be barred from receiving such treatments with or without the advice of their health care team. Doubtless, this will result in the eventual classification of tanning beds as a medical device, which will mean big money for medical device manufacturers, doctors, nurses, and the American Cancer Society.

Governments do not engage in this kind of legislation "for our own good." They're not thinking about the children. Governments have a desperate need to be needed. Bureaucrats have power, but almost no status whatsoever. As a result, they cannot help but place us in demeaning situations in which we must beg the powers at be to avail ourselves of modern technologies.

At some point, society may freely choose to stop the insanity. In a few years, however, no one will even remember what life was like before tanning beds were made "illegal." All of this will be a distant memory.

Except, of course, that I will remember, and will have made note of it on my blog.

Things That Used to Be Legal

As reported by the Associated Press, today, Ohio's ban on two recreational substances - "K2" and "bath salts" - begins. Having never used these substances myself - nor having (knowingly) met anyone else who has - I cannot vouch for the AP's claim that the substance called K2 produces a "marijuana-like high" when smoked and the bath salts produce a "cocaine-like high" when snorted or injected.

On one of the many news websites covering this story, however, I did see a video of a young man allegedly high on bath salts. It was incredibly disturbing.

Some of my readers may expect that I support the ban on these substances; these readers would be wrong, however. I do not support this ban, nor do I support the ban on any other "controlled substance."

This is for many reasons.

1. Black markets cause crime. There is no disputing this fact. It is universally understood. Whenever society attempts to place a ban on something that society wants, shady people come out of the wood-works to supply that which was once supplied by reputable manufacturers. As prices skyrocket in response to diminished supply, criminals flock toward the potential profits. Substances such as K2 and "bath salts," which require nothing more than market-ready chemicals and a rudimentary know-how offer rich profits to those who would rather live outside of the law. This, in turn, feeds the underworld. We all know this is how it works, and yet many of us pretend that creating a strong network of organized crime is a better alternative than allowing various morons and the mentally ill to seek a legal high. Go figure.

2. Chemicals are less harmful when the manufacturing process is tightly controlled. As I mentioned in my previous point, manufacturing these substances is not really rocket science. Nevertheless, when manufactured out in the open, legally, various chemists, engineers, experienced factory supervisors, and quality control experts all coordinate their efforts to produce products that meet consumers' needs effectively. When professional adults are forbidden from engaging in this kind of work, however, they are replaced with the criminals described above. These people, in general, are gang members, drug abusers, the desperate poor, and other such people with absolutely no reliable background in the manufacture of consumer goods. 100% of the goods produced can be sold on the black market, therefore quality control flies out the window. Whether the product is safe or unsafe for consumption is irrelevant - it will sell for the same profit as a safe product, and there will be absolutely no marketplace consequence when users die from the product. Therefore, as counter-intuitive as it may seem at first, we are actually subjecting the users of these products to greater risks by making the products illegal.

3. The demand for competing products has just increased. Whatever we can say about K2 and bath salts, they were legal alternatives to products that have already been determined to be extremely unsafe. There is a long list of illegal stimulants that support the existing black market organized crime syndicate. To the extent that people snorted "bath salts," the demand for these illegal stimulants was reduced. To the extent that people smoked "K2," the demand for illegal marijuana was reduced. By outlawing these two new products, we have only driven our children from the convenience store to the back alley. Will anyone seriously tell me that this was a good idea?

4. The total number of drug abusers remains unchanged. As a corollary to point 3, I point out that those people who would purchase a legal product that produces a "legal high" are precisely the same people who purchase illegal products that produce "illegal highs." For the most part, people who use stimulants aren't really interested in how legal is the product they happen to be abusing. They're not interested in conforming to laws, they're interested in getting high. So it always amazes me that people are so naive as to believe that making a product like this illegal will reduce the total number of drug abusers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Which brings me to point number five...

5. You don't heal sick minds with guns, you heal them with reason. However controversial some will interpret this claim to be, I submit that anyone who abuses any kind of substance at all has some level of mental illness. As I have pointed out before, people only escape from their own minds when they don't want to exist in their own minds. In that sense, they are mentally ill. Anyone who has any kind of experience with mental illness knows that you will never heal someone by pointing a gun at a sick person's head and saying, "STOP BEING ILL!" That kind of reasoning is senseless and stupid. And juvenile. It's wishful thinking. You can't just outlaw mental illness and expect it to go away.

No, instead what you have to do is talk to people out in the open. You have to reason with them. You have to persuade them. You have to discuss their problems compassionately and work with them toward a viable solution.

To the extent that this ban is a gun pointed at the head - rather than a dialogue - it does nothing to solve the underlying problem of drug abuse.

6. Are we not masters of our own bodies? If the pro-choice refrain is "My body, my decision," then what on Earth are we doing with these bans? The most fundamental right any human being has is the ability to act on choices that pertain to our own bodies. Bans on product ingestion are horrendous transgressions against the human right to private property (our bodies) and an assault against the most fundamental form of personal freedom.

I may disagree with drug abuse; and when I do, I make that disagreement known. I engage in dialogue. I post something on my blog. I invite comments. I argue, I debate. People walk away with the belief that I am a big jerk for saying the things I say about drug abuse...

But you will never see me arguing for a legal ban of these substances. Because we are masters of our own bodies, because it is dialogue - not guns - that will change minds, and because these kinds of bans are destructive and counter-productive.

Of course, in the end no one will remember what life was like prior to the ban on "K2" and "bath salts." All of this will be a distant memory, and these products will assimilate themselves into the nebulous fog of "drugs, in general."

Except, of course, that I will remember, and will have made note of it on my blog.

Is Every Business Now a "Monopoly?"

Lately I have been thinking a lot about business models, profits, and so forth. There seems to be a significant difference between "the way things used to be" and "the way things are now."

As a simple illustration, we can look at the market for large home appliances or furniture. There was a time when durability, reliability, and longevity was the major selling point for such things. People would make their purchases based on what they thought would last the longest and provide the most reliable use. Such products often came with a lifetime warranty, or at least a twenty-year warranty. Companies became successful by producing the most preferred product, by earning good will with their consumers, and being the best. If a product failed early, that failure and how it was handled by the company impacted that company's reputation - for better, or for worse. The absolute best producer with the best warranty and best customer service made the most money.

And life was simple.

As certain means of production became much less expensive than the old way, businesses discovered the opportunity to make a profit in a slightly different manner. By manufacturing products of a lower quality and selling them for a much lower price, companies could expand their clientele to people who previously could not afford such products - or who could only afford them in limited quantities.

What companies discovered was that consumers seemed to prefer this approach. It offered consumers the ability to re-design their homes more often, experience the excitement of "new stuff" more frequently, and so forth. These days, most consumers have really warmed up to this approach. It is easy to decorate homes and have a well put-together house on virtually any budget. Companies have ditched the warranties and whittled prices down as low as they can go, even outsourcing manual labor to China or, as in the case of IKEA, to the consumers themselves.

Problem?
So life has changed and while we once used to pay a lot for a little bit of really high-quality stuff, we now have inexpensive, good-looking, disposable stuff in abundance. That this is a boon for society, there can be no question. Those of us who still want the really high-quality stuff have to be willing to pay for it. Very high-quality furniture and appliances are out there for a higher price. Everybody wins because everyone has access to the products that are consistent with their needs and budget. Life is great, right?

Well... Some of you may note that I have sort of cherry-picked my example. Virtually everyone loves IKEA, so no one would ever suggest that the market for furniture has deteriorated.

On the other hand, the market for guitars has changed radically. A few decades ago, every instrument was hand-made by an artisan using pretty much the same components. These days, even very expensive guitars are manufactured by laser-guided machines. But the quality of the materials used varies widely between low- and high-end instruments.

And guitarists don't like playing cheap guitars. So, while everyone has a guitar available at their preferred price-point, the only guitars anyone really wants to buy are the ones with high-quality components, and those are all expensive. Buying guitars can be frustrating because no one wants a cheap guitar. We only buy cheap guitars out of necessity, not out of demand.

Withholding Supply
These days, the most common business model seems to be one of withholding supply.

As our guitar example illustrates, the approach is not to offer the best of the best at the lowest price, but rather to use lower-priced items as incentives to spend more. Rather than offering existing levels of craftsmanship at the lowest possible price, guitar manufacturers simply compromise on build quality and offer the resulting compromise at a lower price than the "real" models. In fact, manufacturers are now offering guitar models with special name extensions, like "SE" or "MIM" to differentiate the lower-quality goods from the higher-quality ones.

Another example of how you might observe this phenomenon is in the "modularization" of software products. What used to be an upgrade to an existing product's functionality is now sold as a separate "module." So you might be able to purchase a cell phone that makes calls, but if you want to send pictures using the camera's built-in phone, you'll need to download a separate software module. At its worst, you will often purchase software that promises to do everything you want it to, only to discover that in order to make that happen, it involves purchasing numerous expensive add-ons.

As you can see, these kinds of business practices are much different than capturing production efficiencies as we described in the furniture examples. This is nothing more than the hallmark behavior of the monopolist: withholding supply in order to raise prices above marginal costs.

Let Me Be Perfectly Clear...
Now, unlike the average weirdo, I do not really have a legal or political problem with companies that choose to engage in business practices of this sort. I don't think "there ought to be a law," nor do I think it represents any major abuse of market power. I'm not saying that.

But as a consumer, I find this kind of behavior annoying to point that it is starting to impact my own market decisions. I no longer want to patronize businesses who engage in cheap tactics to squeeze more money out of me, withholding what they know I want with infuriating teasers to try to dupe me into over-spending for it.

Furthermore, as an economist, I find this behavior preposterous. There are a lot of people out there making far too much money while producing not nearly enough goods and services. A little aprioristic reasoning applied to these situations suggests that their days are numbered.

But perhaps more importantly, it also suggests that the modus operandi of most North American businesses is flawed, and these flaws result in a deadweight loss to society at large. When we stop to consider how far technology has come over the past one hundred years, and compares that to the cheap, brittle phones we carry in our pockets that shatter when dropped, or the fact that we must save up for years just to purchase a guitar that doesn't warp in expected weather conditions, it gets really obvious. We are getting hosed.

The Punchline
The reason I have been thinking about all of this is because I have been mulling over my own entrepreneurial prospects. My ethics are such that I would not feel comfortable engaging in supply games to squeeze my consumers.

What I want is to offer the best services I can at the most attractive price. I want to offer content and quality. I want to offer the best. I will never be able to offer "the best" by playing cheap games that take advantage of my consumers' ignorance or inability to strike a better bargain elsewhere.

Call it professional ethics, if you like. What is sad is that withholding supply seems to be the rule to me, not the exception.

Justifying Private Property To The Poor

True to form, Kevin Vallier has another thought-provoking post over at Bleeding Heart Libertarians, in which he challenges his readers to provide a justification for property rights that will be satisfying even to the poor:

Rousseau asks us to imagine someone who is not convinced of natural rights to property, at least as interpreted by the richer laborers in society. The responder has a rational complaint: who made you [the rich, the “haves] judge of where your property rights begin and end? It’s a dangerous juridical power, one that can easily be used to keep people hungry and powerless. In light of the suffering of the property-less, why should they ever think that the claims of the rich and powerful are naturally legitimate? What could justify the haves in using coercion to protect their property when the have-nots have so little? 

What Rousseau brings into focus is that, at the most fundamental level, property rights are coercive and so trigger a requirement of justification to those who are putatively disadvantaged by the property system.

But just when you think Vallier has gone granola on us, he emphasizes:

I am willing to concede that, despite reasonable pluralism, people who deny that any private property system can be justified to the least advantaged are both wrong and unreasonable. But it seems that the very strong property rights claims that libertarians endorse still raise Rousseau’s worry. How can we justify the coercion involved in delineating and enforcing property rights to those least favored by those arrangements?

Property has always been and will always be disputed. Inequality is unpleasant to those on the low end of the spectrum and always will be. Humans are by nature jealous when poor and rent-seeking when rich. Philosophy cannot, in my opinion, conquer these facts. I also agree with Vallier and, for example, David Friedman when they say that "natural rights libertarianism" (or maybe more accurately: Rothbardianism) fundamentally falls short in its justification for property rights.

In particular, I think the Rothbardians have taken things much too far. They believe everything reduces to property rights: 

Liberals generally wish to preserve the concept of "rights" for such "human" rights as freedom of speech, while denying the concept to private property.[1] And yet, on the contrary the concept of "rights" only makes sense as property rights. For not only are there no human rights which are not also property rights, but the former rights lose their absoluteness and clarity and become fuzzy and vulnerable when property rights are not used as the standard.

Ayn Rand also believed this:

The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life.

Because modern libertarianism is in many ways the result of the combined efforts of Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, it is difficult to get most libertarians to think beyond the sanctity of almighty natural rights/property rights. But, while Rand was adamant about her view of property rights, the idea that she refused to consider other possibilities is, in my opinion, Rothbard-Rockwell propaganda. It's hard to crack the sanctified image of Murray Rothbard in the eyes of Rothbardists, but it's also necessary. Many would be shocked to discover that Ludwig von Mises was hardly a proponent of natural rights or Rothbardian property rights:

Private property is a human device. It is not sacred. It came into existence in early ages of history, when people with their own power and by their own authority appropriated to themselves what had previously not been anybody's property. Again and again proprietors were robbed of their property by expropriation. The history of private property can be traced back to a point at which it originated out of acts which were certainly not legal. Virtually every owner is the direct or indirect legal successor of people who acquired ownership either by arbitrary appropriation of ownerless things or by violent spoilation of their predecessor. 

However, the fact that legal formalism can trace back every title either to arbitrary appropriation or to violent expropriation has no significance whatever for the conditions of a market society. Ownership in the market economy is no longer linked up with the remote origin of private property. Those events in a far-distant past, hidden in the darkness of primitive mankind's history, are no longer of any concern for our day. For in an unhampered market society the consumers daily decide anew who should own and how much he should own. The consumers allot control of the means of production to those who know how to use them best for the satisfaction of the most urgent wants of the consumers. Only in a legal and formalistic sense can the owners be considered the successors of appropriators and expropriators. In fact, they are mandataries of the consumers, bound by the operation of the market to serve the consumers best. Under capitalism, private property is the consummation of the self-determination of the consumers.

And herein lies the whole solution to the "problem" posed by Rousseau and Vallier. Property can only change hands by force or by trade. One of these is violent and coercive and the other is peaceful and cooperative. Thus there are only two ways to solve problems of distributive "justice:" by force or by trade.

Philosophy will never be able to make people feel better about the fact that they have little while others have much. Those who think that some of us are "too greedy" cannot be dissuaded by an elegant philosophical solution. What fails to square in their minds is not the notion that the rich feel deserving of their wealth, but rather the fact that the poor continue to starve and die. The only "solutions" they will tolerate are ones that result in the rich being punished for their greed and the poor being rewarded for their need.

But when we think practically, we see that there are only two real possibilities here. Either we are going to use force and violence to redistribute wealth, or we are going to use peace and cooperation to allow resources to trade hands in accordance with the private ambitions of individuals. Resorting to the former necessarily and unequivocally nullifies the latter.

Classical liberalism is the belief that life is most pleasant when people are allowed to do as they please. This sentence is something that either makes you smile because you can imagine the many possibilities embedded in that notion, or it is something that makes you recoil in horror at the many possible injustices that will have to be endured as a result. 

Such a thing can't be "justified" or philosophically explained. Humans want freedom when they have a big idea they want to implement; humans despise freedom when someone else's big idea threatens their own private mojo. All this really tells us is that humans like to entertain the illusion that their own private perspective is the one the results in the greatest happiness and liberty. It is an illusion. Real liberty is both costly to the weak and worthwhile to the strong. The concept of private property enables us to manage this conflict through entirely peaceful means. There is not much else to say about it.

Crider And I Disagree To Agree

Recently the great Paul Crider wrote an "oblique" defense of feminism over at Sweet Talk Conversation. It is very interesting and well worth the read, so as they say in the blogging business, "read the whole thing."

Fond as I am of Crider and his ideas, I've never quite been able to warm up to his affinity for feminism - not because I'm hostile to gender equality, but because I don't see feminism as a viable path toward achieving it. In an odd sort of way, I believe Paul's recent blog post articulates most of the points justifying my belief. Even so, his navigation of these points leads him to feminism, and mine leads me away from it.

Paul Crider and I seldom disagree about anything, so I have to wonder: Do we actually disagree on this topic? Well, that sounds like great fodder for a blog post, so let's get to it.

Why Are People Hostile To Feminism?

Crider isn't afraid to tackle the tough issues head-on, which is why he addresses them right out of the gate:

It turns out some folks are really hostile to feminism. Interestingly, this sentiment comes not just from misogynists, but from genuinely nonsexist people. The hostility seems to stem from the conspicuous existence of feminist ideas and feminist people that are absurd. Statements like “All men are rapists”, “All heterosexual sex is rape“, or “Straight white men cannot suffer discrimination” are all statements that have been uttered by feminists. Then there are the disproportionate public shame campaigns, often whipped up on Twitter, like Shirtgate or Nobel laureate biochemist Tim Hunt getting shamed into resignation over some sexist remarks. Shame is a weapon regularly used by feminists, especially against white males who express frustration at romantic difficulty, with epithets like “mouth-breathers, pimpled, scrawny, blubbery, sperglord, neckbeard, virgins, living in our parents’ basements, man-children” all too common (a list supplied by Scott Alexander). Feminists have been behind some truly scary assaults on free speech and due process, especially when it comes to college life and those accused of sexual assault.

I agree. Those certainly are some attractive reasons to eschew what Crider calls "the ideological impulse" toward feminism, aren't they?

Crider then takes this reasoning right where he needs to: He acknowledges that not all feminists are guilty of these things, but that it's impossible to suggest that the ones who really are guilty aren't "true" feminists. In other words, Crider acknowledges that feminists who do and say bad things are just as representative of feminism itself as are feminists who do not do and say bad things.

Feminism takes all kinds, good and bad; and the fact that feminism includes knaves along with other people is not a mark in favor of feminism. So this is two strikes against feminism right out of the gate: (1) Some feminists are knaves; (2) Feminism necessarily includes knaves.

At this point, a "feminism skeptic" ought to be looking for some attractive reasons to embrace feminism, reasons that are attractive enough to overcome the fact that the label itself will group you in with a significant number of knaves. What does Crider have to offer in that regard?

Feminism As A Lens

Crider's first point in feminism's favor is that it serves as "lens" through which to view and understand the world:

...[F]eminism should be viewed as a lens through which one views the world, bringing certain issues into sharper focus though also inevitably obscuring other details with particular biases. There is no lens-free option; without some kind of lens (theory), the world is a hopeless blur of disordered sensory data. Pretending to go sans-lens is simply to fail to acknowledge or even be aware of the lenses through which one does in fact peer. With a particular lens comes, in addition to a perspective and accompanying biases, a set of tools for understanding and deconstructing problems. This is acute for feminism, as one of the purposes of feminism is to highlight assumptions of a certain kind (gender).

Unfortunately, Crider never mentions why this particular lens is a better or more valuable lens than any other. So while it may be true that seeing the world through feminist eyes brings certain issues into sharper focus, the reader is left alone to wonder whether the view we end up with is more reflective of reality or less.

Indeed, every ideology brings certain issues into sharper focus, including ideologies almost universally understood to be negative. For example, anti-Semitism is a lens through which certain issues are brought into sharper focus, but the result is an unfair and heinous antipathy toward members of a particular ethnic group. Since we can all agree that anti-Semitism is a bad lens, we must generally concede that to justify any particular lens, we'll need some kind of evidence or argument that the "picture" we're getting from that lens is one worth seeing.

Too often, many accept on assumption the value of ideological feminism, which has come to mean not merely gender equality, but also a whole host of additional values. For example, the Feminist Women's Health Center lists among its core values a commitment "to reproductive freedom and justice," i.e. the belief that aborting a human fetus is a human right. If that were the only feminist organization that grouped pro-life abortion values in with broader feminism, then we might disregard it as an outlier - but it's not. The message is clear: Women who oppose abortion, but support gender equality simply aren't feminists.

And there is a long list of similar issues, all equally unnecessary to the over-arching goal of gender equality. Feminists are expected to favor Title 9 legislation. Feminists are expected to favor mandatory and ever-increasing amounts of maternity leave at an employer's or government's expense. Feminists are expected to favor government-provided day care. We need not conduct a deep dive into each of these issues to simply note that feminism is often articulated as a package-deal. If you're not all-in, you're not a feminist. (Unless, of course, the over-arching goal of ideological feminism is not gender equality at all.)

True, some feminist groups attempt to advocate pro-life feminism or libertarian feminism, but these groups are mostly outliers that are not representative of mainstream feminism. In some cases, as with pro-life feminism, they are single-issue groups promoting one non-feminist value (like opposition to abortion) ahead of the "rest" of the feminist agenda.

Whatever we might say about these outlying groups, they are few-enough and far-enough-between to warrant the following observation: If the feminist lens tends to bring "certain issues" into focus, then those issues are in somes cases illiberal and in almost all cases left-leaning.

How likely is it that viewing the world more often from the left results in an objectively more accurate picture, especially when it sometimes puts you at odds with the right to free speech? Unless you're a demagogue, not likely at all.

Fuzzy Feminism

Let's pause for a moment and consider two important concessions Crider has already made against feminism: First, that they are often enemies of free speech (I agree), and second that they are often against free markets, right-to-life viewpoints, and other non-leftist policy preferences (I agree). In light of that fact, it seems increasingly difficult to justify feminism as a means toward a more accurate view of the truth.

On some level, Crider seems to be agree with me on this, because his next set of points argues against orthodoxy. He writes that all ideologies are a "living conversation," and concludes that "The boundaries of what lies within and without the tradition become established by common understanding, but the boundaries are blurry and can move over time."

He goes further:

As a conversation, it is a category error to view feminism in toto as either true or false, right or wrong. Feminism contains too many voices contradicting one another at various levels for any blanket judgment to be meaningful. The feminist positions and behaviors above are often used to condemn feminism as a whole, but of course there are feminists who don’t hold those beliefs.

Once again, I agree. However, if something can neither be true or false, right or wrong, in toto, then how can it be viewed as good or bad, or indeed worthy of defense or worthy of condemnation?  What, in the end, is Crider actually defending?

What follows is a long discussion about the multitude of feminist "varieties," and how they should all count as feminism in the same sense that Catholic and Protestant are both Christians. One easy objection to this point is that comparing feminism to a religion ultimately defeats Crider's argument against orthodoxy.

But a more important criticism is this: The sexes ought to be equal for reasons of basic human dignity, not for metaphysical reasons. Any justification of feminism that can only be justified metaphysically is bound to be rejected by anyone whose views are rooted mainly in physics.

What I mean is, I think it's simply unfair to assign a lower legal value to a woman than to a man. I think this creates a systemic prejudice against a population that ultimately cannot be overcome through "just living your life." This isn't a metaphysical belief about fairness, it's a physical observation of legal outcomes. It's an empirical matter. We don't need a conversation about "what is justice?" in order to make our legal treatment of the sexes blind and equal. It's incumbent upon advocates of gender-superiority to make the case that systemic inequality is more just than equality.

Crider warns us right at the outset of his blog post: "I would like to defend feminism in a more direct and full-throated way, but I could only do so for my particular kind of liberal feminism." But since metaphysics broadly - and Crider's "epistemic virtue" in particular - are highly personal and individualized, I'm still left wondering, what is Crider actually defending?

He next warns us about the dangers of tribal thinking - a warning that I strongly agree with - but this is an odd warning to provide in the context of the defense of a particular tribe. He rightly implores feminists to root-out its worst arguments and dispense with them, but then suggests that non-feminists are not in a position to understand the extent to which it is already happening. Maybe not, but any ideology that has not yet rid itself of terrible arguments (or the aforementioned inclinations against free speech and non-leftist politics) is not ready for endorsement by any person who considers himself or herself a careful thinker. If feminism still has work to do on the inside, let it do its work before its insiders ask the rest of us to accept it as a worthy endeavor.

Feminism As A Set Of Ideas

At the end of Crider's post, he lists a set of concepts - developed within the feminist framework - that he says are worth "taking seriously regardless of worldview." A few of them are concepts that I myself cannot and will not take seriously, but I will leave that matter aside for a moment.

The real argument against that list of concepts is that each and every one of those concepts can be "taken seriously," and even fully accepted without the feminist label. To suggest that feminism is worthy of defense merely because it has resulted in a few good developments seems to me to be as misguided as accepting German nationalism merely because German culture has provided many important contributions to humankind. I accept the value of Beethoven's music without having to call myself "German at heart" or some such thing.

So the conclusion is obvious: The label really is superfluous. There is no need to accept a label like feminism. There appears to be no inherent value in the label itself. So long as you accept valuable ideas as being valuable, and reject bad arguments as being bad, then you're on the right track. Who could possibly disagree with that?

What conclusion does this lead Crider to make?

Though I’m a feminist myself, I don’t believe everyone must identify as a feminist. People will always have idiosyncratic reasons for both attachment to and disaffection from certain identities. And I have seen enough nonfeminist nonsexists in the wild to believe that the fruits of feminism can be enjoyed without universal identification under the F word.

Aha. So Paul Crider and I agree with each other after all. I thought so. :)

Social Justice

Even if the BHLs are all wrong when it comes to making and subsequently defending their weaker claims, it would be fallacious to conclude that because they can't defend their claims, the claims are thus false. If we temporarily suspend disbelief, can we make hay with any concept of social justice?

Defining The Terms
Justice is a highly contested concept in philosophy, and has been for thousands of years. A vague, but fairly acceptable definition for the term might be "each person getting exactly that which he or she deserves, erring on the side of excess when it comes to good things happening to good people."

That's for "justice," now what about "social?" That one is quite a bit easier: something is social if it involves a group of individuals who share a common attribute. This leaves the door wide open, but it is necessary to do so. After all, I can form a social group around any attribute I want, so long as the rest of the group agrees. Likewise, I can also create a social group for you, so long as I can convince sufficiently many other people that the grouping attribute I've chosen is applicable. It's not important that you agree, it only matters that other people do. This is how stereotypes are made, after all.

Having thus defined "social" and "justice" individually, the definition of the conjoint term "social justice" is obvious: Social justice is when each social group gets exactly what it deserves, erring on the side of excess when it comes to good things happening to good groups.

Applying The Terms - Part One
A key point here is that this definition is fully acceptable and intuitive when applied to groups to which we feel an affinity.

For example, social justice occurs when the poor as a social group gets more of what it deserves. That is, the poor consists of individuals of no less moral worth than any other social group, yet they possess less material wealth. Therefore, social justice occurs when we give more material wealth to worthy people in need, i.e. members of the poor as a social group.

Likewise, social justice occurs when women as a social group gets more of what it deserves. That is, women are individuals of no less moral worth than any other social group, yet they possess a relatively lower level of social credibility relative to men as a social group. Therefore, when we give more social credibility to women than they currently have, we are spreading social justice.

Applying The Terms - Part Two
Another key point is that, just as Plato and Socrates observed eons ago, justice is not merely providing good to those worthy of receiving good, but also bad to those worthy of receiving bad. Justice hasn't been served until a criminal, for example, has received fair punishment for his crimes.

Applied to social justice, however, we begin to sense a need to tread carefully. Which social groups deserve punishment? In some cases, it is easy to define, as in the case of umbrella-concept bogeymen: racists, criminals, the corrupt, the morally depraved, and so on. It is easy enough to conjure up terms that imply the existence of a group of knaves who warrant punishment.

But when called to actually specify social groups who ought to be punished in the real world, with a real legal policy of social justice, we are almost sure to fail. To use the two groups specified in the previous section, how many of us would go on record calling for social justice to be waged against the poor, or against women? Clearly, any such person would be deservedly run out of town. Even calls for social justice against the corresponding opposites - the rich, and men - make most people uncomfortable. Granted, there has been some success over the years demonizing "the rich," or "the one-percent," etc., but it is only the most extreme and vociferous socialists and feminists who would call for social justice against all rich people or all men. For the most part, such calls would make normal people very uncomfortable, and rightly so.

And it is obviously even worse to argue for social justice against other groups based on race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, and so on. Most of us are able to realize fairly quickly that this is unacceptable bigotry.

Concerns
Therefore, it might be that, while justice is a concept that involves both rewards and punishments, social justice is a concept that only involves rewards.

But if this is so, then shouldn't we instead call it "generosity" or "kindness" or perhaps "egalitarianism?" The reason we do not use these terms is because "justice" as applied to social justice is meant to imply that there are social groups who do not have things to which they are actually entitled. The key implication is that by further depriving these groups of what they do not have, things that the rest of us do indeed possess, we are perpetuating an injustice.

Social justice implies not that we should be kind and generous to all social groups, nor that we should treat them all equally. Social justice in fact goes a step further to suggest that whatever conditions are currently had by the poor, by women, by African-Americans, or whomever, are morally wrong and that failing to correct the problem - or at least to try - constitutes a black mark against our own personal morality.

To that point, I raise two objections:

1. Unless you believe in Original Sin, it is impossible to hold people morally responsible for the present conditions of the world, no matter how ill they are, unless you can draw clear causality between the actions of the accused and the suffering of the victims. Regarding the poor, for example, it is not at all clear that my getting up and going to work and going home and spending time with my family every day, etc., is contributing to the suffering of the poor. So, in what way am I morally responsible for the suffering of the poor? And if the answer is, "You are morally obligated to help the poor," then I ask again: Are you not merely talking about kindness and generosity, rather than justice?

2. As I noted above, I can assemble a social group consisting of any particular attribute I choose. All I require is an applicable attribute and a large enough number of other people who agree with me. Therefore, I can draw the "poverty line" at $15K per year, $50K per year, $150K per year, or any other number. I need not draw my racial groups around skin color alone, I can draw them around national borders. Therefore "Americans" should give more to "Africans" to correct social injustice. Or, perhaps I am more interested in the unique social injustice suffered by those of mixed racial origin versus the luckier members of pure race-based groups. Here I might pit a son against his own father.

Under the social justice framework, any group I can identify can be argued as having unique social justice concerns that ought to be corrected, but there is no framework for identifying which group should be focused on first or most passionately. There is also no discussion about the selfish motives of group insiders who argue for the social justice of their own group. Of course there are selfish individual motives for all of these things, but there is no room for that particular line of analysis in a social justice discussion.

Conclusion
David Friedman has quite adeptly poked holes in our ability to concretely define social justice. Here, I have attempted to define it and discuss it as broadly as possible. Even in as flattering terms as we can give it, the concept involves major problems that cannot be easily overcome.

So, I would argue that social justice is at best problematic, and at worst more of a rhetorical tool used to promote selfish political objectives. At any rate, it is a difficult thing to take seriously.

Threatin Seems Alright By Me. What's The Problem Here?

Jered Threatin, real name Jered Eames, has earned himself the reputation of being a con artist. I myself, however, am conflicted.

For those of you who don’t have exposure to this world, let’s bring you up to speed.

Threatin is a “band” based out of Los Angeles. In truth, it is more of a musical project conceived, written, produced, and performed by Jered Eames under the stage name Jered Threatin. I have absolutely no problem with Threatin’s use of a stage name. That is a very common practice among both amateur and professional musicians. I also have no bones about the fact that Threatin the band is really just a creative entity that exists as more or less the solo project of Threatin the man. We’ve all heard Nine Inch Nails, and we all know that it is really just a Trent Reznor solo project. None of us care about that. Reznor is Nine Inch Nails, just as Threatin is Threatin. So, once again, the cast of characters in this story is really just a cast of amateur or semi-pro musicians doing things that are quite common for amateur or semi-pro musicians to do.

Threatin is not distinguished from the rest of us amateurs by the fact that he used bots and apps to gain fake likes on Facebook and Instagram – after all, tons of people do this, even people you know and like, and while we might roll our eyes about it once in a while, no one really thinks it’s that big a deal.

Threatin is also not distinguished by the fact that he invented record labels, promo, and management companies to help legitimize his act. After all, Devin Townsend created “Hevy Devy Records” way back in the nineties solely as a vehicle to promote Devin Townsend. Hevy Devy Records, you will remember, used to have its own separate website from Devin Townsend’s own artist website, and HDR used to list all of Townsend’s acts as separate artists on the HDR roster. At the time, must of us considered that clever. We knew all those artists were really just various flavors of Devin Townsend, but it all seemed fair enough. In fact, nowadays it is quite common for artists to self-publish their albums and invent a record label name. It’s so common that the fact that Threatin did this didn’t even strike me as being even a little odd. It’s just, you know, using the language of record promotions to self-publish your work. Big deal.

Nor, for that matter, is Threatin distinguished by the fact that he created YouTube videos that make it look as though he’s performing in front of a massive audience. Even the very earliest music videos from the 70s show well-known artists rocking out on stage in full regalia, as though they are putting on a big concert. In reality, most of those videos were filmed in studios designed to look like legitimate concert stages, and there was no real audience. I’m also aware of at least one major-label song – King’s X’s “live” cover of “Manic Depression” by Jimi Hendrix – of an artist’s being recorded in the studio with studio tricks being used to make the listener believe that it was recorded in front of a massive, arena-sized audience. To my knowledge, no one has ever accused King’s X of being frauds or phonies for having done this – nor should anyone accuse them of this, in my opinion. This is all pretty blasé music industry practice, as far as I can tell.

Threatin does, however, appear to have done some things that artists before him have not done, or at least not successfully. He tried to create his own Wikipedia page about himself. He listed non-existent artists on his record label’s website, and that of his promotions company. He invented a fake music award and claimed to have won it.

And, most importantly, he leveraged the power of his manufactured social media presence to hire a pickup band, book a European tour, and actually play. From what I can tell, Threatin legitimately paid the booking fees for these venues. So we cannot say that he defrauded these venues, since he paid them fair and square. The only apparent problem here is that the venues were expecting a packed house along with venue booking fees, and Threatin merely paid the booking fees. The audience never showed up, because there was no audience in the first place. Because Threatin is not a famous band with enough clout or commercial appeal to justify a European tour.

But so what?

The metal music press is all a-twitter about this allegedly “fake” band and “fake” tour, but I’m left scratching my head. Threatin appears to be an artist who makes good on his contracts, even despite having very little popularity and a mostly manufactured media presence. First of all, good for him for making good on his legal and business obligations – not every artist does that. Second of all, being unpopular is not a crime. Third of all, point me in the direction of the “legitimate” music act that does not exaggerate its own credibility.

VH-1 used to broadcast a program called “Behind the Music,” which would tell the story behind the rise and success of a famous band. One episode I vividly remember was about the band Oasis. In it, Noel Gallagher is quoted saying, “Look, if you go around telling people you’re the best band in the world, fifty percent of them are going to believe it!” Perhaps Jered Threatin saw the same episode I saw.

In the end, Threatin’s rise to infamy-if-not-fame is certainly unorthodox in its whole, but no one thing that he did looks particularly unethical or screwy to me. Much of what he did has been standard practice in the music industry for decades. No one yet has remarked that Threatin’s music lacks credibility.

So what really is the controvery here? One of the richest and most famous celebrities in the world today is a woman who rose to fame by having her sex tape stolen. She has managed to leverage that fame into multi-million-dollar business deals for herself, along with multi-million-dollar business deals for each one of her siblings, and her parents. Sure, it’s certainly en vogue to hate the Kardashians, but their expert use of social media and self-promotion reveals a business acumen that many “Instagram Models” have attempted to replicate – some with greater success than others. Beyond that, I think he’s demonstrated a fair amount of social media savvy, and had some fun along the way. None of this strikes me as being wrong, or even lame.

I certainly admire his ability to have created a media circus. Perhaps his only misstep here was aiming too high. Rather than a European tour, perhaps he should have merely attempted to sell out the Viper Room, and then the House of Blues, and then perhaps leverage those appearances to gain an opening slot on someone else’s tour.

Or perhaps he really just wanted to have some fun playing some gigs in Europe while on vacation. I’ve certainly entertained similar ideas myself. Wouldn’t it be cool to book a week at a resort in Cabo, with my friends and bandmates, and while I’m down there, play a couple of shows in local venues? I’d jokingly call it a “tour,” and why not? It kind of would be. Some ten years ago, I even tried to book a few shows around town in a city a few states over, just so that I could play music with a friend of mine. We only managed to book one appearance at an open mic, but again: big deal. It was fun! I bet Threatin is also having fun playing gigs here and there while seeing the sights in Europe. More power to him, I say.

I haven’t heard any of Threatin’s music. Maybe I’ll go listen to some now. I hope I enjoy what I hear, because I hope a guy with that kind of creative streak has at least a little success.

ADDENDUM: I listened to his music, and while it's not the kind of thing I usually listen to, it's actually pretty good. He plays all the instruments, and plays them well. He sings, and his voice is just fine. His lyrics won't change your life, but they're good. To be sure, he's an above-average musician, in my opinion, and easily deserving of some success. Good for him.

Who Are The Muslims?

I begin my blog-stravaganza with an analysis of Islam; or, more specifically, an analysis of opinions held by non-Muslims of Muslim people in general.

A comment* in a recent Facebook post in the "Muslims Against ISIS" community reads as follows:

There's [sic] been a lot on this page recently about how compassionate, tolerant and broadminded [sic] Muslims are; but recent events in Saudi Arabia really do call this in to [sic] question. What am I to think when I hear that in fully islamic [sic] States [sic] such as Saudi Arabia and Iran they still hand out the death penalty to homosexuals, atheists, apostates, government critics, womens [sic] liberationists, labour unionists etc.... Are you going to tell me again that these are not true Muslims. [sic] Its [sic] obvious that ISIS has powerful and likeminded [sic] friends.

The community administrator then responded as follows:

[O]ne bit of advice is to understand that Saudi Arabia is certainly not a "fully Islamic state" they are not the representatives of Islam, or are Iran. [sic throughout that sentence] These countries have their own laws made by their own leaders. Saudi is run by a bunch of filthy rich evil people, who drink alcohol, have sex ourside [sic] of marriage, have more than 4 wives, have strippers etc.. [sic] These are all strictly forbidden in islam [sic]. They dont [sic] care about islam! [sic]

I remember an interview on CNN, Reza Aslan did and how he humiliated the journalists and educated them, what Saudi do [sic] is Saudis [sic] business, don't brush all Muslims on the basis of what Saudi and Iran do! [sic] That is called bigotry. You want to judge Muslims, judge us on what you see in front of your eyes, study Islam if you are so interested. Meet a real Muslim. Talk to us.

We posted an article earlier about sharia law [sic], did you read that?

There is much to unpack here. (And I don't mean the grammatical errors - where would I start?) Both the commentator and the community administrator make important errors in what they say. At the risk of sounding too cute, error is the enemy of understanding.

What I mean is, there seems to be a large swath of Americans who are critical of Muslims, and there also seems to be a large swath of Muslims who want to respond to those criticisms, but if both of these groups are making errors that the other side can't catch or doesn't fully understand, then this attempted dialogue is doomed to fail. The failure of this dialogue means a worsening of interpersonal relationships in America, and I don't want to see that happen. So, I'm going to do my small part to push us all a few micrometers closer to a better understanding of each other.

It Happened In Saudi Arabia, Therefore Muslims Did It

The original commentator makes a mistake that a lot of non-Muslim Americans seem to make about Muslims. He assumes that events that take place in the Middle East are representative of what "Muslims do," that views expressed by people in the Middle East are representative of what "Muslims believe," and so forth.

It's easy to see why this is a silly mistake. No one would suggest, for example, that beliefs widely held by Central Americans are representative of what "Christians believe." To suggest that the actions of the Greek or Russian governments represent the will of a largely Orthodox Christian populace is obviously laughable. Nor does the average Italian speak for Catholics at large. Nor is the American system the result of a melting pot of multiple different kinds of Christians. 

National and regional cultures are much, much more potent in shaping societies than religion alone. That's why Central America is culturally different from North America, even though both are largely "Christian" regions. And, against the suggestion that the difference can be explained by race, I'll point out that South America is quite different from Central America, as well, and both are quite different from Southern Europe. 

If we wanted to, we could construct a hypothetical fear-mongering narrative about the terrible things that happen in Christian societies, based on the historical events of isolated regions of the Christian world. But that would be silly, because what happens in Cuba is a result of Cuba (along with the international pressures that used them as puppets).

So it goes with the Muslim world. It's no secret that the Middle East is a politically unstable, frequently violent, and heavily feudal region of the world. It was so prior to the spread of Islam, and it was afterward. It is not the only such region in the world. Its cultures, however, are very different from the cultures of, say, Chechnya, or Kyrgyzstan, or Bangladesh, or Malaysia. There is no one, underlying set of "problems" faced by these nations, and just about the only two things they all have in common are Islam and a history of British colonialism. 

Long story short, you cannot say "X happens in Muslim countries" unless you can find an X that has happened in all Muslim countries. My modest proposition is this: the only X's anyone will reliably find for all Muslim countries are relatively uninteresting with respect to xenophobic concerns.

I am open to being wrong about this, but at least now the task of proving me wrong is a little clearer.

Muslims Don't Drink Alcohol, Have Sex, Etc.

The administrator of "Muslims Against ISIS" seems to have his/her own confusion about Muslims. To him/her, a Saudi prince can't be a Muslim if he drinks alcohol or fornicates. Or whatever. 

This one makes me laugh because, as my readers know, I grew up in Utah, where "mormons don't drink alcohol," "mormons don't have premarital sex," "mormons don't drink coffee," and so on and so forth. And yet, growing up amid all sorts of people who made such claims, I met lots of mormons who drank, smoked, got tattoos, had sex, and all the rest of it. As it turned out, mormons fell for all the same vices the rest of us human beings do, because - surprise, surprise - mormons are human beings.

And so are Muslims. Hence (and I won't name names), I know lots of Muslims who drink, swear, get tattoos, have premarital sex, do drugs, fail to pray five times a day, never make a pilgrimage, eat haram food and drink, and don't wear the hijab. It hardly seems necessary to point out that Muslims are just like us and get into all the same kind of trouble the rest of us do, but apparently it is.

But it doesn't just stop there. Take, for example, Bangladeshi Muslims, who eat shrimp several times a week (on a good week). Are they not "real Muslims?" Well, we could ask them - and in fact, I have asked them. The answer is that shrimp isn't forbidden at all. Do you think I'd get the same answer from a Yemeni Muslim? I doubt it (but if any Yemenis are reading this, please clarify your understanding of the matter in the comments). 

Among Christians, or atheists, or Hindus, or etc., it goes without saying that different people believe different things. We could argue about which set of beliefs is the most reflective of the Qu'ran, and which Muslim is the best Muslim, but leaving all that aside, we are forced to admit the following: Because Muslims are human beings, they (like other human beings) have a diverse set of beliefs and thoughts. Some of them do things contrary to Islam because they're not good Muslims. Some of them do things that they later rationalize as being consistent with Islam, even though it might not be. Some of them are atheists and just haven't told their parents yet. Some of them want to be good Muslims but just fail because they're still working at it. Some are incredibly modern and progressive people who have found support for their beliefs in the Qu'ran and among Muslim scholars. 

So, Muslims who claim that other Muslims "aren't Muslims" are being judgmental and proclaiming their own personal belief system. They are not, however, making "official" proclamations about who is and is not a Muslim. 

A Few Words On Shari'a Law

It would be helpful if my readers would consult the following two articles:

First, consult this short blog post from David Friedman, who spent some time studying Islamic law a couple of years ago. In it, Friedman says this:

Islamic law as it was interpreted by legal scholars and applied in the traditional court system is fiqh. Shari'a is what fiqh would be if the scholars always got it right, something they have never claimed to do. Think of it as law in the mind of God.

In other words, "Shari'a law" doesn't mean stoning whores and cutting off the hands of thieves. Instead, what it means is applying religious principles to legal problems with the aid of religious scholars. That's certainly contrary to America's long-standing tradition of the separation of church and state, but it's not quite as spooky as some have been lead to believe.

To better understand why it's not so spooky, consult this second article, from Salon.com, written by an American lawyer who has worked with Muslim clients in applying fiqh. (He incorrectly calls this "sharia law.")

Now a few quick thoughts from me:

First: I have deliberately chosen two sources at different ideological poles. If you are not inclined to believe a libertarian like Friedman, then you can consult the very leftist Salon, and vice-versa. There is nothing "ideological" about the above interpretation of Shari'a law.

Second: In the United States, fiqh is already happening, and has been happening for a long time. However, there is no way for a non-Muslim to be bound to this process unless s/he submits to it voluntarily. Think of it like formal legal arbitration. This, by the way, is fully consistent with libertarianism.

Third: Many, many Muslims object to the violent applications of fiqh that are common in some parts of the world. Indeed, any human being would object to such cruel and unusual punishment. Reports of widespread support of such systems by Muslims are greatly exaggerated. But, here's the important part: You'll never learn about the extent to which ordinarily Muslims object to cruel and unusual punishments by asking them about "sharia law." This is because when you ask a Muslim if they "support sharia law," you are effectively asking them, "do you support the perfect implementation of god's plan?" What religious person would object to that question? 

But, of course, that question doesn't ask what the inquisitor wishes to know, because the inquisitor doesn't understand the question (and, quite often, neither does the respondent).

The point is, don't assume that a Muslim favors beheadings and stonings just because s/he favors Shari'a law. Neither would you suspect your neighbor of being a slaver if you found out he supported a return to strict Constitutional American governance.

Conclusion

From all this, I hope I have managed to impress upon those of you who still have an open mind (and are still reading - ha!) that Muslims exhibit all the same diversity of opinion and belief that is present in people of other religions. I hope I have managed to convey the idea that most of the problems faced by various regions of "the Muslim world" are really regional problems, not specific to a religion. I hope I have managed to provide some information about people in such a way that you find it a little more difficult to place all Muslims in the same "box."

If there's one thing I've learned over the course of my life, it's that absolutely every human being in the world is an individual, and thus we have to interact with each other accordingly. You simply can't make categorical statements about individuals because individuals don't fit well in categories. Even the categories you hope define yourself don't fit perfectly, and there is a list of exceptions or justifications you use to reconcile that cognitive dissonance... And that's okay! Because that's what being an individual is all about. You're not just like everyone I might group you in with.

And neither are Muslims. This is painfully obvious when you know lots of Muslims - and getting to know lots of Muslims is the best, if not the only, way to cure ourselves of our in-group/out-group biases here.

But again, I'm open to being proven wrong. Why don't you get to know some Muslims and then tell me that I am wrong about them. It couldn't possibly hurt.

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* Note: I have omitted a link to the comment and the group out of respect for the privacy of strangers. It is, I believe, a public group, so I'm sure you can locate these comments on Facebook if you would like to verify them for yourselves.