on doxxing, mummified heads, free speech, and not being a dick
Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Ren's Hi Ren, Gregor Jordan & Peter Woodward's Unthinkable, Elon Musk's private jets and the principle of utilitarianism
28 Jan 23 | Vol 2 Issue 2
The sweetheart is no longer in a coma-lite™ so our usual enquiry into light hearted consumerist philosophy — or philosophical consumerism — can rage on.
A simple favour please — I am currently in conversation with authors Susan Finlay and Rowena Macdonald, whose work deserves a wider audience. With that in mind, please forward this edition to someone you know — friend, enemy, or frenemy — who might enjoy these posts, or a different one you think better suited to wooing. Better still, ring them up, harangue, shout, threaten and coerce them into subscribing. Nicely, of course.
This week I'm indebted to the Daily Philosophy article on Kant's practical joke (warning: there isn't one, and it's not funny). This introduced me to Jeremy Bentham and his principle of utilitarianism. Well, not Jeremy Bentham. Every Londoner knows Jeremy Bentham.
I joined Twitter in June 2007. I was wildly excited. And probably drunk, my #firsttweet has a timestamp of 4:06am. My final one was the 16th of last month.
While we are on the subject, which we weren't, free speech and Twitter came up in conversation with my friend Ollie. I expressed the view, with one caveat, that I don't view Trump being banned as any big deal or infringement of rights. Twitter is a private company. It’s not a public service — it’s a members club. A club with its own rules, dress code, door policy, and clientele. If I go to a tennis club and repeatedly tell the management that tennis sucks, that all the players they admire are idiots, and shout, frequently, I AM THE GREATEST DARTS PLAYER!! EVER!!!!, then I can expect my membership to be revoked.
The caveat being that Twitter itself is protected from being sued over publishing tweets calling you a darts loving buffoon by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. It immunises platforms from any liability hosting content posted by third-parties/nutters.
Since they are seeking protection, saying it's not us guv, it seems to me they then can't morally object to opinions they don't like. Morally, not legally.
A printed magazine containing nudie photos submitted by vengeful exes can be prosecuted for that content. Under Section 230, websites who knowingly host the same content cannot be found liable. Ironically the intended purpose of Section 230 was to protect ISPs wishing to restrict access to offensive material; not provide a safe harbour for hosting unlawful content posted by fanatics and creeps. [1 ]
Elon Musk recently deleted accounts belonging to anyone doxxing him. Doxxing, or d0xing as it was originally spelt, being the non-consensual publishing of someone's personal data. In this case publishing the location of his private jet. I know, I can feel your sympathy.
I didn't resign from Twitter because of free speech issues, it was for utilitarian reasons. Although I didn't know it at the time.
Funnily enough I've met Jeremy Bentham. Although he wasn't very talkative. He's known for not only bequeathing his body to science, but insisting in his last will and testament that his remains be... well...
My body I give to my dear friend Doctor Southwood Smith to be disposed of in a manner hereinafter mentioned, and I direct ... he will take my body under his charge and take the requisite and appropriate measures for the disposal and preservation of the several parts of my bodily frame in the manner expressed in the paper annexed to this my will and at the top of which I have written Auto Icon. The skeleton he will cause to be put together in such a manner as that the whole figure may be seated in a chair usually occupied by me when living, in the attitude in which I am sitting when engaged in thought in the course of time employed in writing. I direct that the body thus prepared shall be transferred to my executor. He will cause the skeleton to be clad in one of the suits of black occasionally worn by me. The body so clothed, together with the chair and the staff in the my later years bourne by me, he will take charge of and for containing the whole apparatus he will cause to be prepared an appropriate box or case and will cause to be engraved in conspicuous characters on a plate to be affixed thereon and also on the labels on the glass cases in which the preparations of the soft parts of my body shall be contained ... my name at length with the letters ob: followed by the day of my decease. If it should so happen that my personal friends and other disciples should be disposed to meet together on some day or days of the year for the purpose of commemorating the founder of the greatest happiness system of morals and legislation my executor will from time to time cause to be conveyed to the room in which they meet the said box or case with the contents therein to be stationed in such part of the room as to the assembled company shall seem meet.
Queens Square Place, Westminster, Wednesday 30th May, 1832. [2 ]
You can still drop in and visit his dressed skeleton and wax head, or auto icon as he named it, at the University College London (UCL) student centre. I was lucky enough to see him at his old home in the South Cloisters. Replete with his mummified head resting between his feet, sitting in a wooden case. Bentham's head is now under lock and key to stop students from stealing it, again, as they are want to do during rag week.
Two weeks ago I learnt about his principle of utilitarianism, in order to better understand it I thought it could be useful to help decide whether old Elon is justified in not wanting the location of his private jet doxxed, or if he's merely being a dick.
Summed up in the simplest form, as said by Bentham It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.
You get out your scales of happiness (presumably kept next to your heart weighing scales of Anubis), and weigh the consequences of your action. The happiness of everyone affected on one side, any harm and suffering on the other. If the scales tip up to joy, then you're morally cool to action whatever scheme you think is such a great idea. The important factor here is agent neutrality — your happiness is not worth any more than anyone else's happiness. I also just like being able to utter sentences with the phrase agent neutrality in them.
Let's try with the ethics of doxxing Musk's jet. He's just ordered a Gulfstream G700. He already has four other jets, three Gulfstreams and one Dassault. The G650 is the newest he currently uses, so let's use that as our example.
Musk's objection is "any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info." [3 ]
First some background. Doxxing normally means revealing private information. The location of his jet is based on public data. The site Flightradar24 for instance, which you may have used when meeting loved ones at the airport, uses information from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The super rich and famous can apply to have their plane’s tail number withheld from the standard public data using a FAA program called Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed.
However, you are required to broadcast your locations over the radio using an onboard system called ADS-B Out [4 ]. Lots of hobbyists pool these messages in databases like ADS-B Exchange, so if you know the tail number, you can track. Nothing illegal going on. The FAA stated "A flight can be tracked in ways such as a Freedom of Information Act request, flightradar24.com, flightaware.com, liveatc.com, ADSB Exchange, or a frequently departed airport."
Many air traffic control agencies worldwide use ADS-B Out technology to increase the safety, efficiency and visibility of planes in the sky.
“I don’t love the idea of being shot by a nutcase.” stated Musk. I Googled people shot in airports. It seems there've been roughly eight incidents, mostly terrorism, and none based on a specific plane's location, all random victims. [5 ]
Should we hide data of a plane's location?
On Elon's scale there's Elon and his perceived endangerment from a deadly assassin.
On the opposing scale sits everyone else flying (approximately 4700,000,000 people [6 ]) with the removal of increased plane visibility for air traffic control agencies worldwide, decreasing safety.
Pretty sure the Greatest Good for the Greatest Number principle with 4700,000,000 to 1 tips the scale against Elon Musk’s side.
If we do hide real-time locations of planes?
A single convenience factor for Musk balanced against the inconvenience of all those people unable to monitor whether the plane they're meeting will be delayed. Let's assume only five percent of passengers are ever met at the airport. That's 235000000 people inconvenienced versus one happy Musk.
235000000 to 1. Again, not in Musk’s favour I would posit.
Now, I'm not a certified genius [7 ] but it seems to me, if you want to limit your visibility, booking a seat in premier class, where the passenger list is confidential seems an easy win. Rather than flying around in a plane that only belongs to you. Just saying.
Which is the option of Elon Musk not flying in private jets, instead using luxury class abroad scheduled flights.
A 2021 study by Transport & Environment found that just 1% of people cause 50% of global aviation emissions. [8 ]
According to www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Carbonoffset/Pages/default.aspx a one hour flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur (the world's busiest route) seated in economy is 89.4 lbs of CO2
www.paramountbusinessjets.com/tools/carbon-offset-calculator tells me one hour in a Gulfstream G650 is 10,614.00 lbs
(Don’t you love that the super rich have an online private jet carbon offset calculator? Parody is dead)
As we're all going to die in a sludge of toxic red algae due to global warming, our scales pitting 89.4 against 10,614.00 says the greatest good for the greatest people means no private jet for Musky.
Hold on you say. That's not a real argument. He's not going to fly economy. The Airbus A320 has 12 first class recliner seats. If Elon buys out first class for himself, that's 1072.5 lbs versus 10,614.00 lbs. And a confidential flight manifest.
Thanks to Jeremy Bentham we can now say that Elon Musk is ethically a dick.
We could apply the same questions using Kant's Categorical Imperative, but time is precious, perhaps next week.
Of course utilitarianism can lead to all sorts of philosophical dilemmas. To start with, a lifetime of theoretical train accidents. This is a switch joke. I feel there's mileage — or indeed trackage — to be had in hypothetically killing varying quantities of people tied to various rail branches in a future issue. A better example might be torturing terrorists to find the location of the nuclear bomb.
Our daughter has never looked at us quite the same after witnessing Anne and I furiously screaming "Torture the child! Torture the child!" at the television, watching Samuel L Jackson in Unthinkable. Incidentally, it never saw a cinema release, and was leaked onto the internet, raising another ethical debate. [9 ]
The film is a textbook example of utilitarianism, does the end justify the means? The greater good?
Which leaves only this week's media recommendations and why I left Twitter. It wasn't because Musk banned those journalists and accounts doxxing him. That comes as no surprise. Just like Trump being banned. It's once again the principle of utilitarianism.
As utilitarianism has deduced, Elon Musk is a private jet polluting knob. He is running Twitter to make money. The more capital he has, the more private jets he'll buy. Remember — he just ordered a brand new one when he already owns four. Every tweet we make is empowering the Musk Machine. He furloughed Tesla workers without pay during Covid, while the company turned a $721,000,000 profit [10 ]. The greatest good for the greatest people is Elon Musk not being encouraged to be in charge of anything, anywhere, ever. Don't tweet, it just encourages him.
Speaking of my friend Ollie, he recently linked a music video. Nothing to do with private jets or mummified heads. I originally intended to include it in the previous edition. Omitted since it features surgical gowns and wheelchairs; I felt last week had enough hospital as it was.
It starts with a Spanish-esque acoustic guitar and goes somewhere else entirely. If you are tempted to skip watching, I urge you to hit that play button. Regardless of musical taste it is an extraordinary nine minute performance. His style is reminiscent of...no, he says that himself.
Signed to Sony in 2010, just as he contracted Lyme disease, forcing him to spend up to 23 hours a day bed bound. A long recovery road back to be able to create Hi Ren. People are not their illness, I mention this solely to drive home this is not an act or gimmick, but wrought from experience and the sheer force of perseverance.
He made this. Whatever your excuse for not finishing something: think again.
More Ren at www.sickboi.co.uk
I was surprised to find I hadn't recommended Mona Awad’s Bunny in a year of writing posts. I blame holding back, always waiting for that perfect subject heading to include it with. So I’m loosening the cohesion requirements.
Donna Tartt’s The Secret History is now deemed a modern classic, any similarity to it is used to promote new titles. Very few books keep their fame for thirty years. Most slip quietly away. So when I can't think of a suitably thematic book or novel, and I haven't bought anything new, I shall fall back on recommending something that's just old enough to have faded from sight.
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl | Buy here
As teenager Blue van Meer tells her story we are hurled into a dizzying world of murder and butterflies, womanizing and wandering, American McCulture, The Western Canon, political radicalism and juvenile crushisms. Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class (with hand-drawn Visual Aids), Blue's wickedly funny yet poignant tale reveals how the imagination finds meaning in the most bewildering times, the ways people of all ages strive for connection, and how the darkest of secrets can set us free.
Published in 2006, while there’s elements of The Secret History, the novel's narrator, a bookish and pedantic Blue, has a unique voice. Several reviews called it both precocious and a little irritating, whilst grudgingly admitting by the end any stylish affectations transform into a page turning mystery. There is perhaps a ridiculously tenuous link to this week's column.
It was a hit back when it came out, enough time has passed, combined with the author's somewhat slow output — two books since then, neither quite scaling the world building masterclass of her debut — means it's probably time to launch a revival. I was never exasperated by its highly stylised conventions, the character is precocious as well as the writing, so well matched. When asked for a good read, this alway springs to mind.
This week featured
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
Special thanks to the amazing Fatima Fletcher, our artist in residence for their hero and zero illustration.
Please show Fatima your love by following and liking every single one of her posts at www.instagram.com/fatima.fletcher, and visiting fatimafletcher.com, where her work is for sale, she is available for commissions.
Her wonderful Ruff Ruff coasters are for sale at fatima-fletcher.square.site/s/shop
Buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/vfnIE9P0Ta
References
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/08/tesla-will-slash-employee-pay-furlough-hourly-workers.html
Legally I have to tell you I might get five pence or something from Bookshop dot org should you purchase something, but really I just want to stick it to Amazon and keep independent bookshops alive. Yeah, rebel me, bringing the man down from the inside etc etc.
THE ARTWORK