Imagine that you ran an electronics manufacturing company. Would you hire someone who has an education in electronics and a few years of experience?

Now, suppose that the applicant instead had no degree, no experience, and, for that matter, no background in electronics at all. Would you still hire him? Odds are, you’d favor the applicant who has the degree and the experience.

So then, why would you hire someone to make decisions for your company who has no experience with electronics manufacturing, or with managing such a business? Such a decision would seem counterproductive.

Yet, that’s what happens when countless businesses hire consultants, and delegate their decision-making to them.

But it gets even worse than that, because such a move would be a betrayal of the trust of each individual who is in the company’s employ, and each of its shareholders.

Think about it: each person employed by the company is dependent upon the company’s continued success. Each employee represents at least one mouth to feed, considering that each of them could hypothetically have multiple dependents who rely upon them to continue paying living expenses. If the company were to fail, then each of these employees and their dependents would face an uncertain future.

And as for the shareholders, understanding how self-defeating it would be to hire someone who would undermine the company, and the effect this would have on investments, would seem a standard feature of a three-digit IQ.

Now, let’s be a bit more specific. One of the trends that’s become evident in consultants is an embrace of the concept of DEI, short for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. It has to do with ensuring a certain amount of representation in the workplace. When presented in as many words, this might sound like a noble endeavor.

But it’s not.

DEI focuses on meeting certain quotas in hiring decisions, without respect to actual qualifications. It has to do with making incentives to hire based on characteristics such as race, sexual orientation, religion, sexual identity, and other characteristics.

It sells itself by saying that it’s not racism. But it’s something that might be more damaging, called tokenism.

Ideally, an employer should not be racist or tokenist. Hiring decisions should be made based on qualification and ability, with no regard to immutable genetic characteristic.

DEI does not respect this, and this is its fatal flaw.

Suppose you had to go in to see a doctor. Suppose a team of physicians agreed that you have need of open-heart surgery. Which would you prefer:

• The most qualified and experienced operating physicians in the state? Or,
• A team of less competent physicians, who at least look different?

Does this seem too dire? Okay then, here’s a different example:

Suppose you’re booking a flight from Philadelphia to Houston. Would you prefer that your airline of choice have a team of mechanics who:

• All know what they’re doing, because they’ve been carefully selected from the most qualified, educated, and experienced candidates? Or,
• A bunch of entitled busybodies who can’t turn a wrench, let alone identify a mechanical fault, but at least a few different religions are represented?

That wasn’t much better. Here’s another example, which might be more lighthearted:

You need an electrical repair to your home. Would you rather:

• Have a few experienced, qualified electricians on the job? Or,
• Sleep under a bridge knowing that your house was burned down by people who preferred certain genitals?

I hope that the point is getting across. While racism on its own was bad, the tokenism espoused by DEI has the potential to be far more destructive.

Here’s a real-world example: Last year, a submersible in the Atlantic Ocean experienced a catastrophic failure, resulting in the implosion of the submersible, instantly killing everyone on board, including Stockton Rush, the head of OceanGate, the company that made the submersible.

Previously, Stockton Rush had stated an interest in not hiring white men, saying that he didn’t think this was inspiring. If his focus was more on qualification rather than tokenism, Stockton Rush might still be alive today, as would his passengers.

While tokenism is horrifying in both theory and practice, it’s an ideology that is espoused by a disturbing number of consultants.

Related less to tokenism and more to inappropriate cost-cutting, the McKinsey consulting firm advised Disneyland to cut maintenance costs. Consequently, there have been many ride failures, many involving injuries and fatalities, which could have been avoided with the proper maintenance.

While it’s often said that consultants are economic Marxists, it should be known that most consultants are evidently not economic Marxists. Today, it’s challenging to find any economic Marxist who can be taken seriously.

However, consultants bear the memetic legacy of Marxist ideology. This is particularly relevant as relates to consultants because Marxists teach that there is an adversarial relationship between the collective and the private corporation. Obviously, to hire someone on with an ideological motivation to undermine the company would be counterproductive.

It’s important to understand that no company needs consultants. Consultants don’t exist for the betterment of your company, they exist to draw in a paycheck. And they are excellent at tricking gullible people into hiring them on.

The fact is, you can make your own decisions for your own company. The people in your employ are counting on it. And for that matter, so are your customers and your investors, whether they know it or not.

People know that computers can be hacked. But what’s not as obvious is that people can also be hacked. Where computers can be hacked with code, people can be hacked with rhetoric. Understanding how rhetoric can be used to manipulate you can be thought of as antivirus for your mind.

One such form of hacking is through the leading question. A leading question is a question that is designed to control a person’s thoughts, answers, and even sometimes behaviors. It’s a hypnotic trick which, if you don’t recognize it, can get you to say or do something that you otherwise might not have.

One example is the loaded question. A loaded question is a question that contains an assumption, but is phrased in such a way so that the assumption avoids being challenged.

Here’s an example that you might see on social media:

Do you suppose that those racists are going to push for a border wall, again?

Larson E.

Here, Larson E. is trying to pull a fast one: his question is whether those who favor a border wall to stem the tide of unnaturalized illegal immigrants will continue to do so, but it contains the assumption that they are motivated by racism. In reality, the people being impugned as racists may be of the understanding that certain values are not universal, and that illegal migrants may commit crimes or otherwise weaken the culture.

One can call out the claim that racism motivates those calling for a border wall, but the one posing the question may insist that this wasn’t his question, and that he wanted to know whether they still wanted a border wall. Remember, the idea is to insulate the racism claim from challenge, because people like Larson E. wants the claim of racism to be accepted without dispute.

Another trick to watch out for is the false dichotomy. A false dichotomy is a question that is phrased to suggest that there are only two possible answers, when there could be many more.

Here’s an example of a false dichotomy in action:

What do you propose we do about those rebels disrupting the supply lines? Do we withdraw or ignore them?

Skip2

Two options are presented: cede ground or continue as though there’s no problem. In reality, there may be other ways to handle the matter, such as fight or negotiate. Perhaps Skip2 didn’t suggest the other options because he didn’t prefer them.

The person presenting the false dichotomy may be motivated by a desire not to call attention to a decision that he doesn’t consider preferable, but it’s also possible that he wishes to present a course of action as unwise, so he presents only a couple of the most unfavorable outcomes as one that one can reasonably expect. Here’s an example:

If you confront him, you’ll likely get into a fight, or at least waste your time.

Willie M.

Of course, it’s possible that both parties would reach an agreement or a compromise, but Willie M. isn’t expressing much expectation of such outcomes.

To be fair, a person isn’t always obligated to present all the possibilities, as there’s often the expectation that you’re able to consider the ones that you can reasonably expect, on your own. Presenting an incomplete list of possibilities or options is sometimes done for brevity, not with malicious intent.

Leading questions can sometimes be phrased to suggest a yes/no answer. This is often an attempt to limit your options, or trick you into a false confession.

Are you ever going to stop stealing from the poor?

TehCheet1337

If you answer yes or no, you’re confessing to stealing from the poor, which is just what the question is designed to do! The idea isn’t to determine your sincerely-held viewpoints, it’s to trick you into making a confession, however false that confession may be!

Interestingly, the Japanese have an answer to this. While they could answer “hai” (yes) or “ie” (no), their language has a third one-word answer, “mu”, which means something like “impossible” or “inapplicable”. It’s a one-word way for a person to say that a question doesn’t apply to them.

At one point, I worked a customer service job. One of the things that staff was trained to do was ask what’s referred to as suggestive questions, such as the following:

How can I help you, today?

Notice how the question is not whether the clerk can help, but how. The question as phrased makes the customer less likely to be left to their own decision-making, and more likely to state how they can be assisted. This makes the clerk more likely to be involved with their decision-making, and thus more likely to make a purchase. And thus, another sale is made!

Considering how often leading questions are used, it’s not a bad idea to be ready to answer by saying that “the question is wrong”. Then, you can point out how the question is wrong, so that onlookers can immediately see through the trick being employed. Then, if you wish, you can ask them to rephrase the question, and perhaps you might not get the same bad-faith rhetoric. But don’t get your hopes too high.

By the way, tricks such as these are sometimes used in interrogations by law enforcement in an effort to trick the people being questioned into making confessions that may be admissible in court. It’s because of this that the first thing you ask for when being questioned is to have a lawyer present representing you, and not answer any questions until you have one there.

They say that you don’t “lawyer up” unless you have something to hide. They say this to discourage you from protecting yourself when you’re questioned. The fact is, the questioner in an interrogation (or “interview”, as they may rephrase it) is not your friend, however they may speak or act, and you’re not in a fair fight. If you have a lawyer present, the nature of the questions will change, because a seasoned lawyer will know the tactics being employed, and will advise you right then and there whether you should answer a question.

When it comes down to it, there are people out there who are out to manipulate you, and it can be as simple as how they ask questions, which they may expect you to answer. If you learn to call out the questions as phrased, or at least state that the question is wrong, this trick will be a lot less likely to have the desired effect.

It used to be that seeing was believing, but now is the time to get really skeptical. AI has developed to the point that photorealistic images can be generated in a matter of seconds, just from a short prompt. This is a fact that some pretty bad people are taking advantage of on social media, and they’re having their way with those who don’t seem to understand what’s going on.

Making one of these images isn’t hard, either. All one has to do is open the right website, then type in something like “Trump kicking puppies in a filthy alley”, upload it to social media, then watch as the gullible pile in with comments, such as,

What’s Trump doing in such a setting? It’s highly out of character for a presidential candidate to mill about in a random alleyway entirely unescorted. And what’s more, he’s entirely surrounded by filth, which is not the kind of thing I’d expect from someone of his stature. Also, that he’s kicking puppies is kinda dubious.

Massive MAGA

It used to be that if you saw photographic evidence of wrongdoing, the photo itself was considered sufficient to convict. To have faked something completely photorealistic would have taken such time and effort, it would have been implausible to expect from even a professional with an axe to grind.

But now, just one guy who’s out to make a pro-Palestine cause out to be a right-wing position can use up all his allotted image generations per day to make neckbeards with guns, then spend the day posting them on X.

Probably a fed.

On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be much that one can do about it. The djinni is out of the bottle, as the expression goes, and we have to understand that this is the nature of the world that we live in, now. We now live in a world where AI is a fact of life, and we have to adapt, or risk being left behind.

If you know that there are people out there that abuse AI, you’re less likely to fall for their fakery. And if more people become aware of the nature of the world that we now live in, less people would be likely to be tricked.

Thankfully, there are websites now that can check images for the likelihood that they’ve been AI generated. Illuminarty is one that I’ve used. It’s not perfect, as it can only provide likelihoods that images were AI generated. But it’s things like that that’ll have to do, and hopefully, it’ll be a while before images are generated that can consistently defeat such checkers, and maybe we’re already there. Or maybe something can be developed that always succeeds in detecting AI generated images. We’ll see.

Adding to all this is the fact that deepfakes are becoming more believable. So if you’re deciding to place more confidence in video evidence, don’t get too comfortable. When you understand this, you know that it’s become trivial for a person to cause an international incident from their own desk.

Scary? Yes. But if people become educated on the matter, then the danger is greatly reduced.

One thing that we can hope for is that AI systems start developing a sense of ethics, and can detect when someone is misusing them, and autonomously deploy measures to defeat attempts to misuse them.

AI is a fact of life, now. Some people like it, some don’t. But the fact is, we need to adapt to this changing world we live in. Individuals and state actors can abuse AI, to potentially great effect. The best that we can do is learn about it, and put it to use for ourselves. And why not use it? It has the potential to be a great tool for good, not just for bad.

One suggestion that I can make to improve X would be for there to be a tool for the platform to determine whether content is AI generated. I don’t expect it to be perfect, but it might be a great answer to those who would misuse it.

While most know that computers can be hacked, what’s not as well known is that people can be hacked. While computers can be hacked with malicious code, people can be hacked with rhetoric.

To keep the Antivirus For Your Mind up to date, it helps to understand the intellectual trickery that’s being employed in the online world. To that end, today we’re looking at the Gish Gallop.

Sometimes, you hear someone make their case in a manner that’s compelling in its confidence, and with the rapid-fire delivery of his points. He’ll make one point after the other, hammering away as he makes his case. If you’re really paying attention, you may spot a point or two that could be answered. But overall, it seems like he really did his homework.

But, not so fast. What he just did may have been a Gish Gallop.

So, what is a Gish Gallop? A Gish Gallop is what a person is doing when they make their case by rapid-firing numerous claims that are selected as supporting the case, whether the claims are valid or not. A Gish Gallop is as effective as it is because any debate opponent that the arguer may have cannot answer each of the arguments presented in a reasonable amount of time, or the allotted time, as the case may be. What’s more, most people aren’t familiar with this debate tactic, making them more susceptible to being wowed over by the presenter’s confidence and apparent knowledgeability.

The Gish Galloper may even claim victory, because his opponent didn’t answer each of the claims made, which isn’t reasonable to expect considering that it takes more time to refute a claim than to make it.

On social media, a Gish Gallop may take the form of a list. And on a platform like X, where replies have a character limit, to answer each point might not be possible without going into a long thread.

The Gish Gallop was named for the famed creationist Duane Gish, who not only employed the tactic, but also frequently changed the topic before his claims could be answered.

Here’s an example of a Gish Gallop you may see:

The case for socialism is quite clear:

• Capitalism tends towards one person owning the means of production, leading to an abusive power dynamic,
• People cannot be trusted to manage their own finances, as evidenced by their stupid financial decisions,
• Paying people only a fraction of the value that they produce is predatory,
• A debt-based monetary system bankrupts the people,
• Because the currency is produced by the government, they can control it as strictly as they please,
• It’s more fair when everyone is paid the same,
• People who own businesses are each like the top 1%, making them in a better position to pay their fair share.

What’s more, the idea of determining how I produce value on my own is mentally taxing.

Breadtoob Bradley

…And on, and on, and on.

Answering each of Breadtoob Bradley’s fallacious claims can take all day, and there are things that you could probably instead be doing. Breaking down each of these points can result in you typing up multiple paragraphs, so you’d probably be spending a disproportionate amount of time refuting each of the claims compared to the few seconds at a time that it took for Breadtoob Bradley to just fart them out.

And if someone is using the Gish Gallop deliberately, that may even be what they’re counting on. After all, someone in another ideological tribe cannot be counted on to respect your time.

However, Breadtoob Bradley’s rant might impress those who don’t recognize his tactic for what it is. In which case, it might be productive to step in and answer it.

But how does one go about it? What are some effective ways to answer the Gish Gallop?

For one thing, you can just call out the Gish Gallop. If you call attention to the tactic being employed, it’s not going to seem nearly as impressive. Once people know that such a tactic is being used to attempt to impress them, it will be understood for the psychological trick that it is, and the claims being made are more likely to be examined by others more critically.

Another effective way of dealing with the Gish Gallop is by choosing just one point that the opponent made, then hammering away at that.

Remember that the assumptions that the Gish Gallop appeals to is that if a person can present many points at a time, then they must be knowledgeable, and the assumption that if the opponent doesn’t answer all claims, then they can claim victory over any claim left unrefuted.

However, that’s not necessarily the reality of the matter.

Similarly to how a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, the entire Gish Gallop can fail if a carefully-selected point is sufficiently refuted. As a chain under load fails if just one link fails, if just one point in the Gish Gallop can be broken apart, the Galloper’s capacity for reasoning can be called into question.

Therefore, if you only have so much space or time to answer a Gish Gallop, select just one of the opponent’s arguments, then really hammer away at it.

You’re Gish Galloping. Many fallacious arguments does not a strong argument make.

What’s more, how does the state owning all the means of production prevent an abusive power dynamic? The state has the capacity to become abusive, not just individuals.

If that’s your first point, odds are, you didn’t think the rest of them the whole way through.

Based Benny

The party’s over.

But even if you don’t answer it, if you see the Gish Gallop at play and recognize it as the rhetorical trick that it is, you won’t fall for its hypnotic effect.

A Gish Gallop is less likely to be attempted in a format where a person is permitted ample time and space to answer a claim, such as on online discussion boards. So, you’re more likely to come across it in debates that are timed, or other formats where time and space are limited. Often, the Gish Gallop is designed to take advantage of the debate format in an attempt to impress the judges. Such debates are more of a game to exhibit one’s finesse with rhetoric than they are intended to discover the truth of a matter.

Outside of school debate clubs and the like, the use of dishonest tactics to “win” arguments is not a victory in which one can take true pride.

Speaking of, in high school debate clubs, there’s a phenomenon which is similar to the Gish Gallop. You’ve noticed it when you see a student talk super fast, often to the point of gasping for breath, in an effort to make as many points as they can in the allotted time. This is called “spreading” (a portmanteau of “speed” and “reading”), and it’s an embarrassment to the sport of timed debate.

Now that you know about the Gish Gallop, are you going to be as impressed when someone on social media attempts the shotgun approach in their pseudo-intellectualism?