Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Nov 17, 2022 18 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Nine years ago, when crypto-fraudster @SBF_FTX was 19, his mother, a Stanford professor, wrote a very long article making the case that free will is a myth and that we should not blame people for committing crimes.

bostonreview.net/forum/barbara-…
“[O]ur worldviews, aspirations, temperaments, conduct, and achievements—everything we conventionally think of as “us”—are in significant part determined by accidents of biology and circumstance,” she wrote in 2013.
“[S]uppose that Smith grew up in a neighborhood where drug dealing was the most common form of gainful employment. He was raised by a single mother who was a cocaine addict, and by the time he was twelve was supporting his family by selling drugs…
“When he was seventeen, he got caught up in a drug deal gone bad, and in the altercation that ensued, he shot and killed the buyer.

How should we think about Smith’s level of moral responsibility?”
She adds, “parental income and education are the most powerful predictors of whether a three-year-old will end up in the boardroom or in prison…”

According to Fried’s own argument, we should hold her son *more* responsible for his fraud, given his rich, educated parents.
Fried concludes, “we have gotten nothing from our 40-year blame fest except the guilty pleasure of reproaching others for acts that, but for the grace of God, or luck, or social or biological forces, we might well have committed ourselves.”

*Nothing.* For her, it’s black & white
Fried’s essay is reflective of the standard Woke attack on personal responsibility. “You’re not responsible because you didn’t choose your genetics or circumstances.” Under such reasoning, one is not responsible for committing crime.

Amazing.
I addressed this denial of free will/personal responsibility in “San Fransicko.” I noted that, after WWII, there was a debate over free will, and most decided that the “good soldier” a.k.a. “I was just following orders” defense was untenable. Image
I pointed out that denial of free will gives people permission to behave badly. SBF may be proof of that. Image
If free will is a myth, it’s a good one. It’s what leads people to obey laws. It’s what allows civilization to exist. The fact that free will is a myth, “socially constructed,” is no argument against it. Image
What all of that philosophical gymnastics gets you is the justification to do whatever you want. It opens the door to might-makes-right justifications. And it provides a clear path to the charitable-ends-justify-the-fraudulent means rationalizations SBF engaged in.
This scandal is spectacular proof that high intelligence is no substitute for shitty ethics, and may even undermine them. The smartest guys in the room are particularly well-equipped to justify bad, power-hungry nihilism. ImageImageImageImage
Some people have misinterpreted my thread as saying we should blame SBF’s mother for SBF’s apparent crimes. Definitely not. That’s her argument, not mine. I’m saying we should hold SBF, and nobody else, responsible.
As usual, the antidote can be found near the poison. Paul Bloom, in the same issue, makes the identical case I made, which is that free will motivates good behavior.

bostonreview.net/forum_response…
“If you take her argument seriously, nobody should blamed for anything—not the teenager, or the corrupt politician, or the cheating spouse, or anybody else. You also shouldn’t praise, admire, or respect anyone, as all of these attitudes presume some degree of choice.”
Amen Image
SBF deliberately hit his investors in the face while they were sleeping and now he is half-denying he did so deliberately.

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More from @shellenberger

Jun 27
Brazil has been banning and censoring journalists and politicians for years. But now it is taking steps to ban X entirely. It’s time for @SecRubio to block President Lula, Justice Moraes, and their criminal accomplices from entering the US. Image
President Trump and Secretary Rubio must not let these tin pot dictators censor speech and ban the world’s most important social media company.
The sinister Lula and creepy Moraes are trying to intimidate my colleagues and me. We won’t back down.
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Jun 10
They're launching mortar rounds, @GavinNewsom
video credit: @alexdatig
Stay safe out there, @alexdatig Image
Read 7 tweets
Jun 9
Everybody in L.A. knows there aren't enough police officers. It has little more than half as many per capita as Chicago. And yet @GavinNewsom @MayorOfLA @KamalaHarris and *every single* Democratic governor opposed calling out the National Guard. Image
California has half the population as Germany and a bigger economy. We pay the highest taxes by far. And yet, not only does LA have nearly half the police per capita as Chicago, Mayor @KarenBassLA wants to lay-off 400 police officers. Image
@KarenBassLA They're not going to be satisfied until the rest of LA burns down.

Read 6 tweets
Jun 8
There's no shortage of police in L.A., said @GavinNewsom a few hours ago. In fact, L.A. has far fewer police per capita than other big cities. And now, the protesters have overrun the police and blocked the highway. Video: @AnthonyCabassa_
L.A.'s lack of police has been one of the biggest crime stories in California for a decade. As such, @GavinNewsom is either lying or even more in a bubble than we knew. And now, naturally, LA's radical-Left mayor and city council want to cut 400 more police officers. Image
@GavinNewsom Kamala Harris did more than anyone to pass the initiative that decriminalized open air drug dealing and shoplifting. She’s pro-crime because she’s against civilization — at least for poor and working class people, not her and her neighbors.

x.com/kamalaharris/s… x.com/kamalaharris/s…
Read 19 tweets
May 28
Around the world, governments are threatening & censoring US social media platforms for legal speech. Now, @SecRubio @StateDept says it will deny visas to foreign nationals engaged in censorship against Americans, US tech companies, and people posting from inside the US. Image
Since taking office, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has taken a series of actions to push back against growing foreign government demands to censor American citizens and American technology companies like Google, Meta, and X.
In April, Rubio shut down the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), which had funded censorship advocacy by the Global Disinformation Index, a UK-based NGO with ties to the Intelligence Community.
Read 19 tweets
May 23
The idea that the Biden administration viewed millions of Americans as a terrorist threat sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it’s not. Newly declassified documents show that in December 2021, the FBI and DHS labeled opponents of Covid mandates "Domestic Violent Extremists." Image
NEW: Biden Administration Labeled Opponents Of Covid Mandates As “Domestic Violent Extremists,” Newly Released Documents Show

The designation infringed on the First Amendment and opened the door to investigating Americans for vaccine mandate skepticism.

by @shellenberger @C__Herridge and @galexybrane
Former President Joe Biden announces Covid vaccine mandates on September 9, 2021, in Washington, DC. Three months later (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The Biden Administration labeled Americans who opposed the COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as “Domestic Violent Extremists,” or DVEs, according to newly declassified intelligence records obtained by Public and Catherine Herridge Reports. The designation created an “articulable purpose” for FBI or other government agents to open an “assessment” of individuals, which is often the first step toward a formal investigation, said a former FBI agent.

The report, which the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has declassified, claims that “anti government or anti authority violent extremists,” specifically militias, “characterize COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as evidence of government overreach.” A sweeping range of COVID narratives, the report states, “have resonated” with DVEs “motivated by QAnon.”

The FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) coauthored the December 13, 2021 intelligence product whose title reads, “DVEs and Foreign Analogues May React Violently to COVID-19 Mitigation Mandates.”

The report cites criticism of mandates as “prominent narratives” related to violent extremism. These narratives “include the belief that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe, especially for children, are part of a government or global conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil liberties and livelihoods, or are designed to start a new social or political order.“

“It’s a way they could go to social media companies and say, ‘You don’t want to propagate domestic terrorism, so you should take down this content,’” said former FBI agent Steve Friend....

Please subscribe now to support Public's defense of free speech and to read the rest of the article! Complete document release below.

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