We've looked at one side of the equation, the changes we put in place at the societal level to possibly solve the gun problem in America. But what about the individuals who commit crimes in the first place? Is there something deeper to the gun problem that is making America the so called country of homicide? Is there a higher moral standard or philosophy, society is missing that might make individuals less likely to use guns in the first place?
I argue there's a real utility to morality and that in addition to putting in place a tangible solution like a well regulated militia, there might also be a moral solution. Society needs to embrace. This is the bonus talk for, you can't save America by being an informed citizen. So, so we have, we, we have to recognize the fact that no matter what people are going to have access to guns, right?
We, we I talked about this, it's, it's this kind of technological inevitability and the guns are going to be there. So so we can put the physical solutions in place like well regulated militia, but there's still going to be guns. And so it, it kind of comes back to the people. What can we do at the individual level? Are we missing something that would stop so many would be criminals from potentially happening and then using the gun in those heated moments.
Well, if you think about that, the only thing kind of left if you're definitely going to have guns is, is some kind of higher moral standard or philosophy that would have to exist within the individual, within their world view that would prevent them from one, either getting into these situations in the first place or two, if they are in that situation that they could rise to that higher level, kind of keep that in their mind and say, look, I really don't wanna commit something that, that I know is wrong.
So if we, if we kind of define what moral means, right, it means to be concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character. And I think a lot of us could easily argue that that's something that's kind of missing in today's society, right? What is the higher kind of reason or purpose or philosophy or morality that people can appeal to or that they do appeal to? I mean, most people don't, right.
We, and I think a lot of that has to do with, you know, we kind of live in a world where we make our own truth. We live in a world where we make our own um success, right? You know, we, we have that narrative very much baked into society. I mean, uh you, you, it's up to you, it's up to the individual and you, you need to, to, you know, to climb that corporate ladder or climb whatever ladder in society to become all you can be, you know, kind of rags to riches stories.
Uh Or if you don't really take that kind of individ individualistic kind of, uh you know, it's all about me, you might kind of blame society maybe you think. Well, we just have to have society be the way it's supposed to be. We need to put, you know, pass bills and pass kind of social solutions in order to make, you know, my life better, this kind of the right versus left mentality there.
But neither of those are necessarily saying, you know, what about the moral or philosophical ideals that we should be living up to? Because there, there is that other side of the equation where the person being in that heated moment with a gun, you know, um let's talk about that. I mean, and, and the first one is, is, would they even get into that situation to begin with?
So if you look at a lot of these crimes that get committed, you know, a lot of times it's um you know, lower income or troubled individuals that maybe didn't have access to as much opportunities as other people did. And so there's kind of a breakdown of family structure that's happening there. We know that a lot of individuals that get into these crimes are missing, let's say a father figure. Um you know, uh or, or there's a breakdown in the family.
So it's not just, you know, you can't just look at an individual and, you know, they're evil or they're bad or, you know, that's one of those criminals. There's this whole background and kind of missing uh moral fabric if you will, uh to, to that individual's life, often, not always but often. And, and I think it, it, it makes sense from, you know, kind of a mental health perspective to think about how that might play a role in putting an individual in these situations in the first place.
Why are they finding themselves in a situation where, you know, the guns are coming out or there, there's the heated debate happening. You know, you got all kinds of things in the news. You got one just happened where, you know, I think a lady was uh ordering french fries and her fries were cold and she started complaining and then she was facetiming. I, I forget if it was her, her husband boyfriend or maybe it was her brother or something.
And then, you know, that guy came in and then they had this big altercation, then he pulled out a gun and then he, he ended up shot shooting the, the person that was working at mcdonald's, I mean, these situations should just not happen. Right. I mean, it's one thing to get into a bit of a heated debate with someone and, you know, in retail or at a food, you know, at a restaurant or something like that.
But to, to, you know, and, and again the guns are going to be there probably because people right now have access to guns and, and that technology is not going to go away and who knows if the militia solution is ever going to happen. So, so why did that situation happen? There must have been something about that individual from an upbringing perspective.
Uh a lacking kind of a proper moral compass perspective, a mental health perspective that would allow himself to get into that kind of altercation and then let alone bring out a gun and end someone's life or potentially the person's in a coma right now, I think, but, you know, potentially on someone's life. Ok. So, so I think we, when you realize that guns are gonna be there no matter what and these situations are gonna happen.
Um The only thing left to kind of on the individualistic side as a solution is to think that there must be some kind of philosophy or higher moral standard that people can live up to, to help them, to help, to help people raise people, one to, to kind of understand those values to, to kind of be concerned with the principles of right and wrong and, and the goodness of badness of human character and to kind of live up to that as an ideal and that might potentially at the individual level stop people from getting into these situations in the first place.
And, and, and even if you are in heated debates to kind of center yourself and you know, have that kind of calm, a kind of moral, philosophical kind of way about you that might help people in general. And we don't usually talk about solutions like this. People will say something well, yeah, mental health or, you know, there's no fathers or something and you know, so, you know, families are breaking down and they kind of leave it at that.
But there's a real, as I, as I will argue in this bonus talk, there is a real utility in life to having that kind of higher, higher moral standard in your life. And I think we need to raise people um to understand the importance of, of morality and of character, the ability to, to, to discriminate between the goodness and badness of human character to have higher ideals, to live up to.
I don't think it can just be about just, just try to improve your life, just try to improve your life and, and be all you can be and climb the corporate ladder. But you know. Yeah. But why, I mean, why are you doing that? There has to be something deeper, there has to be a bigger kind of target there. I think so. So, so that's so, and, and, and, you know, we can debate about what that means.
The philosophy, the moral character, character, obviously, you know, religious people will say, well, it's probably, you know, their religion is, is what, what is grounding there. And I think that's not a bad argument. I mean, I think religion has been very, very stabilizing in a lot of ways to society, you know, far from perfect has got all kinds of problems as well.
But, uh, you know, religion has played a major stabilizing role in society for a reason and, uh, you know, but, or, or there's other philosophies, you know, there's like stoicism and there's different things and, and I don't know, I don't know that if anybody has, you know, the exact right solution. But, but I think we have, we should agree on the fact that a kind of higher moral standard or moral fabric and agreed upon moral fabric in society, um, would be a good thing.
And I think that brings it back to this gun problem in America and to the mental health of individuals, you know, to stop you from, from putting someone in that situation to begin with and maybe not using the gun to begin with. You know, it's not gonna be a perfect solution, but there has to be something in the individual that I think we're missing in society. You know, we don't put a lot of focus on morality. Right. We kind of want to define our own truth and just go with it that way.
Um, so let me just really quickly kind of pull back, uh, the mechanism that I think is at play here. You know, why would something like a moral fabric, uh, you know, demonstrably be good as a solution? I mean, is it real, does it? You know, because it's kind of, it's easy to sound wishy washy about it. Oh, you should just care about morality, right?
You should just have a higher kind of idea that you can work towards and you should just, you know, be good concerned with the principles of right and wrong. And I went, yeah. Ok. Fine. You know, and then they kind of, but there's a real mechanism behind why that is and why that would be good for society and why that's good if individuals want to improve their life. Ok. So there's real utility to morality.
And so if you think about the mechanism, so think about getting into a debate with somebody and you're both arguing, you know, for against something right now, if you just get together and you both kind of just start arguing. Ok. So there's, there's no framework you're not concerned with like the logical framework of how ideas and concepts work together. You're not really concerned with logic. You're not necessarily concerned with, uh, making a good argument or what defines a good argument.
You're kind of just going at each other. Well, it, it, it very quickly becomes very polarized and nobody's really there to learn, nobody is there to, um, you know, try to kind of converge towards some better truth. They're just there to win. And so the, and, and these, these aren't in a, in a sense, not even really debates, right? They're just kind of arguments and you're just kind of going back and forth and sometimes they can be educational but they don't converge to anything.
You see this a lot on, you know, social media where people will go back and forth, they're not there to try to, you know, kind of reach AAA higher truth or admit if they are wrong that the other person made a really good point and not going to consider it, you know, they're really just kind of remaining polarized on it. Well, the reason is because there's not an agreed upon kind of framework or structure in place that you're both working towards.
Ok. So no matter how much you agree with someone, if you want to get into a debate with them, you both have to agree that, you know, logic is a good thing and that there is a way to kind of, you know, connect your premises to the conclusion, to make a good argument to make a sound argument. Right. Remember our, um, logic episode. Right. And, and again, there are limits to this, but you would still agree that there is this, there is such a thing as making a, a good argument.
And that way that if you start kind of going at each other and getting into a debate, getting into an argument, even you could still converge to some. Ok. Well, well, you did make a good point here and, and, and, and then maybe I made a good point here, maybe I uh was kind of, I had some sophistry here, right? I didn't really make a good argument here because I didn't really back up the premises at some level, kind of higher level of abstraction.
If you will, you have to agree that there is kind of a higher good thing happening here, right? Even though we're disagreeing on the details and that's really what it comes down to at the higher level of abstraction. There are those are the things that you, there, there has to be something that the people getting together, agree on. OK. And then at the lower level details, that's where you can kind of disagree. And this happens all over the place.
In fact, it happens as a, as a general mechanism in nature that the higher level pieces are the ones that are more invariant, right? They are more immovable, they are the deeper kind of truths, but the lower level details are constantly in flux, they're going this way, they're going that way. And that's what you want for tractability of hard problems. The lower level details should be in flux. You know, II I say, you know, details are meant to die, right?
Details come and go, they're in flux, they wishy washy. And because you want that variation to basically, you know, as I say, sample the possibility space, right? Take many different paths. Try a lot of different things. I was talking about the ant colony in this episode, right? A lot of different ants trying a lot of different paths.
But at the higher level of abstraction is kind of the true goal, the true target, the thing that has to be agreed upon, like finding the shortest path with ant colonies or uh you know, the the law, the logical structure of a good argument. Um you know, if a company has a company vision, which they do, right?
So, so take an organization, they have a company vision that high level company vision, which which lacks a lot of detail is something that everybody, you know, pretty much has to agree with, right? Or should if you're working for the company, if you don't agree with a company uh vision and direction, you probably shouldn't be working at that organization. But how to achieve that company vision is, is can can totally be in flux, right?
People will find different ways and different strategies and you know Joe Bob over here thinks we're supposed to do this and Samantha over here thinks we're supposed to be doing that. But, and, and you want that kind of good friction at the lower level details because that's where creativity comes from and flexibility comes from. But the higher level of abstraction of the company vision is something that everyone has to agree with.
OK. So, so this is a, you know, where they're talking about, you know, ant colonies of nature organizations and how they run successfully. You have to have this kind of mechanism in place where the higher level agreed upon targets are there and they move very slowly if at all, but the lower level details are expected to be in flux. OK. So how does this relate to something like the gun law and this kind of philosophy, this moral standard?
Well, the morality, the moral fabric that I'm talking about would be something like the high level targets uh are the high level of abstraction that people are supposed to all agree on, right? That is the moral fabric of society that I think we're missing. However, you want to define that morality, whether, you know, whether that's something from a religion, something that's uh you know, spiritual, something that's uh philosophical, maybe it's a type of philosophy.
Again, we can get into what that means and people have and that's OK, we can have that debate, right?
If we all agree that a moral fabric is important, but that shared kind of morality about being concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior, the goodness or badness of human character, you know, um, the, those, those kind of moral dimensions of life, if we agree that that is important, that that is, that is kind of the ultimate truth to something, then the lower level details, um you know, can exist in life.
And, uh, and, and I think so so when I think it comes to the gun law, um you know, there, there's, there's a better chance of raising people with a good kind of moral code. There's a reason that everybody kind of doesn't want to just get into conflicts. There's a reason why you might not pull again in the first place, right? But now think about a society that doesn't have that moral fabric that doesn't have that kind of shared high level abstraction of what is good and what is right is wrong.
And you might say, wow, is that real? I mean, isn't everyone kind of moral? Well, if you think about the world we're living in, it's, it's very kind of this postmodern kind of moral relativistic world, right? So, moral relativism is where you basically just make your own truth. And that's very, very much kind of a narrative in today's society, right?
We're kind of pulling away from a lot of these religions, we're getting more secular, we're pulling away from a lot of institutions that have in place have been in place over time that would maybe provide a kind of moral fabric. Now, I'm not arguing for any one religion right now. I'm not even saying who's to say if it's religion, maybe it's philosophy that that's a different conversation we can get into.
But we are as a society pulling away from some kind of shared moral fabric and instead kind of existing as a group of people that say, just make your own truth, right? It's all about you, you know, maybe you fight for changes in the system or maybe you wanna kind of entrepreneurial and, and embrace capitalism and go from rights to riches, whatever that story is. But it's, it's not about some higher morality, it's really about you, it's all on you.
You need to make, you need to be the change, right? You need to be the change and, and so a lot of, and that not all of that is bad, of course. But a lot of that is related to this moral relativism where you're just you, you're not ground the the problem with you making your own truth is now it's not anchored on anything. Everything is in flux. So if you go back to that mechanism, I was talking about you have the high level kind of targets, right?
The high level uh ideals where everybody has to agree on something and then the low level is in flux. Well, with moral relativism, everything is just in flux and there's no high level thing that's being agreed upon. Right. I imagine that, that debate example again, if I'm gonna go debate with someone and I make my own truth. Well, there's, there's nothing that, that we need to agree on because I'm just, I just make my own truth. You can say, well, you made a bad argument.
I'll say, well, no, I didn't. It's my truth. It's my lived experience, whatever it is, I could say, you made a bad argument. You can say, well, no, it's not. Right. And that's not to say lived experience and things like this is not important. Of course, though, those are, those are very important. Those details are very important, but they're not the ultimate truth of something. There has to be something agreed upon.
Ok. And again, stepping back, this isn't specifically about gun law or any other kind of issue. It doesn't matter what I do on nontrivial as I step back and I look at the mechanism as a mechanism that makes hard problems tractable. We know that there has to be a higher level abstraction that acts as a target that the entire system quote unquote agrees upon and works towards. Right. And that target is something that, um, ultimately, you, you never reach. Right.
It's a goal that you don't, you don't really completely reach, but it's a target that you work towards. So all the things that are in flux kind of are, are in service to something that is higher, something that is uh a higher reason. And you have to have AAA an agreed upon uh within the organization or within society or within two people in a debate and agreed upon understanding that that higher level thing is the ultimate goal no matter how much we disagree.
OK. So I think, you know, again, just kind of going back, we've got two sides of the equation here. We've got things we can do at kind of the societal level. And then we've got things that we can do and the individual who's actually committing the crime. In the main episode, I talked about, you know, putting something like a true regulated militia and I gave the mechanisms and reasoning behind that as kind of a societal tangible solution we could put in place.
And then I said, now let's, let's go to the other side of the equation, which is the individual actually committing the crime. Is there anything we could do there? Ok. And then I said, I think this, if, if you, if you realize that, you know, guns and that kind of technology is all inevitable, then the only thing left is some kind of higher moral standard, right?
There must be something about the individual and the way they view the world and their own mental health that would prevent them from getting into these situations in the first place and, uh, and, and, and potentially, even if they are in that situation, not, you know, doing something like pulling a trigger.
And so there must be some kind of higher, uh you know, moral standard, moral compass, uh moral fabric to society or philosophy that could exist within the individual that would, you know, really uh help them in situations and help the upbringing of, let's say their own Children uh to, to, to, to kind of have a much healthier worldview, you know, because most of us would agree that it's not going to be put in those situations. OK. Uh And, and mental health might play a role there.
And then we talked about the mechanism of why that is. So um at the high level, there are things that must be agreed upon. And so something like a moral standard or a moral fabric of society is no matter how different we are. If we all agree that that is the ultimate truth, then that's going to make heart problems much more tractable. Uh And then, and at the lower level, those details can be different.
But if we live in a society where it's only about the details being different, it's only about your lived experience, it's only about you making your own truth, then all you have is the flux part of the equation. Uh uh part of the, the mechanism, all you have is the variation part of things.
It's like, you're, you're the, you're the ants in the ant colony and you're going all the different directions, going all the different directions, which is a really, really important part of the problem solving. But that's all you have. You don't have the higher level goal of, you know, trying to find the shortest path between two points in a debate. You got all the difference of opinions and, and what about this?
And I think this and I think that, and that's all great and all that friction is awesome, but you don't have the agreed upon high level logical framework in place that said, look, there is such thing as a good argument and there's such thing as a bad argument. But if you take away the high level piece of that mechanism, then you, you no longer converge towards a solution, right? Debates no longer converge, right? The are they, they, they just remain as arguments?
They become polarized and so society no longer converges to solutions if everybody just keeps making their own truth. So there should be some higher standard. OK. So, so I think uh um there's a real, so just as a solution to kind of this whole thing, I think we have to step back and recognize that when we talk about morality or having a good philosophy in life and whatever your version of that, whether it's religion or something, it's not all just kind of. Oh yeah, that's nice.
You know, of course, we should know the difference is big, good and bad. No, there's a real utility to this. There's a real utility in life to understanding how to have a healthy mental state and to have a higher ideal. And the reason why this is, is ultimately a good thing is because again, from a mechanistic standpoint, there has to be a higher level target that things try to converge towards.
And so if you only make your own truth in that kind of moral relativistic sense, what is the higher thing that you're trying to achieve? What is the higher reason for doing something, right? And remember we talked about in return to magic, right? Like a lot of people were making a lot of technological and scientific progress, were doing it for reasons that weren't necessarily related to science and technology directly, right?
They had this kind of higher belief in something and whether that high, whether the thing you're believing in is real or not at some sense doesn't even matter. It's having something higher. Your, your goals are, are supposed to be things that you don't achieve, right? They, they're supposed to be so high that you can't really quite achieve them. But that's what keeps driving you forward. That's what gives you the reason to get up in the morning.
That's what keeps pushing you and motivating you kind of naively to enter the world and to create things. And as a byproduct of doing that, you get things like technological innovation, scientific innovation. Uh, you, you'll, your, your personal life will be much more improved regardless of whether the thing that you're aiming towards is even real or not in some sense that doesn't even matter. It might matter to you kind of as an individual, but it doesn't really matter. Right.
In fact, the more you do believe it's real, the better because the more you'll aim for it, but you have to have a target that you don't quite, quite reach. But if everybody's making their own truth, what's the target? There has to be something bigger than you, bigger than yourself. OK. Um So yeah, that, that's a, that, that's, you know, all I want to say in this, in, in this bonus talk is that, you know, again, we put the kind of tangible thing in place.
I think the gun militia makes sense for, for mechanistic reasons that I explained in the original episode. But the other side of this equation is, you know, the morality there there that we're missing some kind of agreed upon level of abstraction in society, uh that's related to, you know, concerning being concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior.
And uh and an individual should have the constitution within themselves not to pull the trigger and the upbringing within a society that teaches them, you know, the difference between right and wrong and not as a wishy washy happy, go lucky thing. But as a real utility to their life. Ok. Um, and, and, you know, I, I, again, just think about that mechanism. Things have to have high level targets and, and they have to have the, the differences in the flux.
And if you move one of those, you're in pro, you're, you're, you're in trouble, right? You can go the other way, you can say, hey, I've got a business and, uh, let's say, uh, you know, if I've only got the high level targets and I have no differences. I have no diversity in my company. I have no, you know, really a good variation. Well, it doesn't matter, those high level targets are gonna be useless. Right?
Like if all you had was morality and, uh, and you just took a super hard stance on it and you almost, you know, in a draconian sense enforced the morality on people, right? And I think this is where some religions can actually get into trouble historically, if they try to enforce the morality on people and they don't allow for the differences in the different way, way of that morality to be expressed. That's no better. That, that, that's, that's gonna be a problem as well.
And then the other side of that, which is kind of where we are now is if you remove the high level targets and you don't have a moral shared fabric in society, but you just have the differences and the, the lived experiences and everybody can kind of make their own truth. That's also going to be a problem because then there's, there's no higher level goal to, to work towards. You have to have both. That's all for this episode's bonus talk.
Until next time you're listening to Non Trivial, the podcast that uncovers the patterns that help you understand and navigate our complex world.