United Headsets

Recently, while listening to a video in a friend's home office, I removed the headphones to take a call. And I remarked that on the inside of the headphones (which had somehow ended up on the friend's desk after a United flight) it was marked "Will not work outside aircraft." Clearly, this is false. My question for the general public and the FAA is - are airlines really allowed to lie?

I understand that it is a lie intended to prevent what is perhaps inappropriate behavior on the part of airline travelers - and I understand that the lie isn't related to safety or other such matters but more of a bottom-line thing - but I still have a problem with it. If United is going to brazenly lie on its headphones, what can we believe and what can't we believe about what they say? And are they allowed to lie whenever it helps them financially? For example, if it makes me feel more safe, can they say things that are obviously false?

For example, will that seat cushion really support me if I need to float in the ocean (and how long are they anticipating that I can hold my arms around it while floating in the ocean)? Does the door really weigh whatever they say it weighs? Can I actually believe that a lithe or rather chubby flight attendant can lift that door? These are similar to questions already asked, and in their minds answered, by travelers. For example, the rule that phones must be turned off during flight (and particularly during take-off and landing) is routinely flouted, in large part because travelers believe the airlines are lying about interference with air traffic control communications. Similarly, passengers will frequently pass on purchasing a "fresh" type food option as they (rightly) do not believe that food served on a 9 hour flight can really be "fresh." There is outright laughter at the announcement "we know you have a choice" in terms of choosing a carrier, because it implies that the airline is making an effort at customer service, which is made very evidently false by the exceptionally surly flight attendants. When the pilot comes on and announces that the plane is encountering light turbulence, passengers honestly don't know what to believe. And I think in large part this is due to the duplicity of the airlines in other practices. Claiming you've paid the fare and then charging extra for taxes, bags, food, alcohol, and now even flying home for thanksgiving. Saying your bags are covered and then refusing to pay you when your bag is destroyed or permanently lost on some bizarre technicality. Selling you a ticket and then not allowing you to get an assigned seat even though over half the plane is full and forcing you to show up at the airport hours early or log-on to the website exactly 23 hours ahead of take-off to get the earliest spot on the list, and even then, you can get bumped by someone with higher "status." Honestly, given these experiences, how are you supposed to believe anything the airlines or their employees say? The only things I believe are the ones I overhear flight attendants gossiping about before flights. I have learned a lot about the financial status of the airlines far ahead of the markets while listening to these conversations.

Peter Singer and some conclusions

Peter Singer has some inconsistent and problematic opinions, this I have known for a while. But I've never cared enough to actually read any of his "philosophy" - I'm not sure I knew that such a thing even existed.

However, while reading a totally different book, I came across a quote summarizing his views on animal rights and was fascinated that he completely lost me immediately, as I will respect a well-crafted argument regardless of its content : "Take the premise of equality among people, which most of us readily accept" Huh? Where do people readily accept this and how do they do it? I've traveled vast swaths of the world and have never seen this. As a general rule if you have money, good looks, athleticism, intelligence, stylish clothes, a well-known family, creativity, opinions etc. you are better than other people who lack these things. That's how it works. And that list goes on forever and varies by culture and sub-culture but it doesn't matter. No one who spends more than 5 seconds thinking about it can actually honestly believe that our society treats people equally.

It goes on: "Equality is a moral idea, not an assertion of fact" - that of course, means nothing. There is a bit of explanation that follows: "The moral idea is that everyone's interests ought to receive equal consideration, regardless of 'what they like or what abilities they have.' Fair enough" - no again, not fair enough. In no way shape or form do people honestly believe that every person's interests should receive equal consideration. It doesn't even make any sense. Some people's interests are useless and even detrimental to society while others are quite beneficial. If we gave every person's interests equal consideration, we'd be living in the third world, in a best case scenario.

And finally, the, I'm sorry you took this where?, tour de force: "If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans for the same purpose?" - right so, beginning with the first clause, having a higher degree of intelligence ALWAYS entitles you to use other humans for your own ends. That's how corporations, firms, household cleaning services, governments, families, pretty much everything in our society works. We, in fact, believe just the opposite - that a higher degree of intelligence allows you to control anyone less intelligent than you, unless they possess other qualities we deem more important (like money etc.). Now, that's just within the human realm. As to animals, I personally have no opinions on this subject, but there is an essential logical link missing here - that being that somehow animals are the same as humans. And here is where I get confused.

It seems to me that if animals are the same as humans, so are vegetables and water and the rays of the sun and pretty much everything around us. I've never once understood the distinction between animals and vegetables by those who are vegetarians and I've never had someone give me more of an explanation than that animals were alive - well, so was that lettuce before you chopped it up to eat it. I rather doubt there is an explanation for it. I searched for "vegetarian philosophy" and this came up as the first hit, a piece by Peter Singer vilifying McDonalds.

McDonald's is a throw-away for so many reasons, mostly having to do with the fact that the organization engages in mass production of food for people with limited budgets and so you can expect things won't be ideal anywhere along the food chain. It's very very easy to criticize. But the interesting part was a quote from a group that was attacking McDonald's with regards to its means of raising animals: "Their deaths are bloody and barbaric." And then, I thought, perhaps I had landed on it. It was simple anthropomorphism. Perhaps because you can have a "bloody" death with an animal, it can somehow be barbaric if you think the animals are people. And because you're not allowed to kill people that way, you shouldn't be able to kill animals. But it doesn't really work.

I don't deny that Mr. Singer does an admirable job for his cause by throwing in supply and demand and fully agree that people can't ignore this fundamental force of our economy when they calculate the impact of individual choices on the world as a whole - too many people are bizarrely ignorant of the way in which multiple individual choices combine together to create a market force. It's just that he never explains why there is a problem with treating animals the same way we do lettuce or tomatoes. I don't deny that the explanation exists, I would just like to hear it in a form that doesn't presume the belief that animals should be treated "humanely" - the argument needs to be made for that as well. Indeed, given that all humans aren't treated with the same stanards, that many are treated quite horribly, it's difficult to even know what a humane standard would be if then applied to something we know relatively little about, like cows. The bases for defining "humane" treatment have to do with how humans interpret things that happen to them and then how they project their feelings onto the potential feelings of others. Somehow it is humane to kill someone by lethal injection but not by strangulation. It seems to me that for the person being killed it can't matter very much at all, but in any case, it is clearly highly dependent on the concept of a "human" and what is appropriate.

To go full circle, it seems to me that there is also little support for the divide between animals and humans and vegetables; we only support such a divide because we need to in order to have a functioning society - we can't have cannibalism running rampant, we can't have people beating each other up in the streets, it just doesn't work, it would create a wildly inefficient society in which people were fighting merely to stay alive. Perhaps there is an argument that we have a more developed society and thus no longer need to maintain that animals are different from humans, but then I have to ask again, why do we get to keep raising vegetables to kill and ingest them? I don't see how this line is drawn and at the end of the day, we have to eat or else we die as well. Assuming factory farmed animals aren't being raised and so the environment isn't being unduly harmed, it is hard to see the argument for using animals to create energy for our bodies as being worse than using vegetables.

ACORN - the need to organize the organizers

So recently ACORN, the miscelleous entity, ended up all over the news again and once again, for completely awful reasons.

As a quick summary, this fellow who is 24 and a law student went around with his 20 year old female friend to a number of ACORN's what appear to be counseling/mortgage storefronts around the country and proposed some inappropriate situations (largely illegal) to which the ACORN employees responded as though being asked for perfectly normal counsel. Oh, and he got it all on tape.

Here's the thing - if a number of your employees at different locations are giving people walking in off the street legal advice on how to commit federal crimes and not get caught and all this ends up on video that is distributed widely across the country and world and you've already had similar problems and you care at all about public perception of your organization, you don't go the defensive route. You don't go the crazy outraged route. It just doesn't work. Especially if you already used up that chip over the voter registration forms. Which is why I didn't understand why ACORN would post this article on their website: Attack Videographer Caught in Manipulation and Lies.

As a contrast, and as proof that the people in charge actually understand the significant implications for the future of their agency and its cause, you can see the primary article posted on the home page, ACORN Announces Major Steps to Address Issues Raised by Videos.

Returning to the "news" article (which is at best a mixed news/opinion piece), was what the O'Keefe fellow did "manipulative"? Possibly - I don't think there's a meaning of that word that doesn't involve projection of an individual's insecurity onto the target, but let us take it down a notch and say that what O'Keefe did was designed to elicit certain responses and reactions. That is true. It isn't really manipulaive, in my opinion, because he wasn't trying to change people's opinions or thoughts or alter how they dealt with situations - it's the entrapment question, but this is pretty straightforward. From the employees' extensive explanations of how to get around laws it seems to me that they were rather adept at doing this (counseling people on how to violate federal law) and didn't seem as though they felt pressured or out of their element. I just want to clarify for people that someone isn't engaging in "manipulation" just because you're not the one controlling the situation. It's an absurdly inflammatory choice of words.

Next up: lies. Did he "lie"? Technically, of course he lied. That's a given and it's part of the style of investigative journalism that he engages in. The point is to see how people deal with situations and to get on tape when you disagree with the manner in which they handle themselves. People generally don't engage in investigative journalism when the subject is something they believe strongly in. I mean, I've never seen it and it would be totally illogical so I assume people don't do this. But again, "lie" is not in the title of the article to make the technical point that O'Keefe was not a pimp as he claimed to be, it's there to suggest that he was engaged in deliberate falsehoods and requires that one subscribes to the kindergarden age appropriate belief that lies are bad, regardless of circumstances. Again, not really the angle you want to take here. It's whiny, self-righteous and just underlines the point that you don't understand what the problem is with being an agency that claims to be doing social good that flouts laws in favour of helping certain types of people. That just isn't how people think in America. I mean, moreover, if your employees are recommending that people who make their living off breaking laws should lie to the federal government and banks and any number of other entities or people, it's a bit much to complain when someone else uses tactics that you're recommending against you.

But as to the "story" - the woman mentioned here claims that she knew it was a fraud and that she was making fun of them by responding to their statements with even more incredulous statements.
1) That just isn't an appropriate professional response. If someone is messing around with you, you show them the door and tell them to have a nice day. End of story. Why would you play games with them? Why are you wasting the organization's and taxpayer's money in that way? If you don't think these people need help, why aren't you helping people who do? It rings false and seems weird that she would continue to engage with people she thought were mocking her - of course, she could be incredibly insecure and need to feel validated by mocking other people, but it doesn't really matter what her personal issues are, she needs to behave professionally at work.
2) Why, if you were mocking them, would you see fit to say that your employer wouldn't approve of your actions: "Further, as the actors repeatedly noted how nice she was being, Ms Kaelke responded, also repeatedly, that her"niceness" was just her, not ACORN. "My supervisor would shoot this down like faster than a bat out of hell."" I mean, hmmm. That isn't terribly amusing. It isn't a sense of humor at all. I have a terribly terribly dry sense of humor and I can't imagine any world in which that would be funny. The only legitimate interpretation of that statement is that she was in fact saying things that her employer would't approve of, which may or may not be true - I don't know as I don't know who her supervisor is or what exactly she was saying at that point but again, it doesn't really matter. It just isn't funny to say that your supervisor doesn't approve of what you're saying. If it's true, you shouldn't be saying it, especially not at work. If it's not true, that's the type of joke you'd have to tell at a bar with your work buddies so the irony was caught, not to some complete strangers.

It sort of continues on in the same vein from there, ending with "Ms. Kaelke, who did not know she was being filmed, is appalled that her defensive attempts to deal with a troubling experience have been manipulated into an attack on her work helping low- and moderate-income families fight the foreclosure crisis, work for needed health care reform, and face the economic crisis in San Bernardino. " I don't know ACORN well enough to comment on the substance of this but again, let me throw some marketing it its direction. The sentence screams defensive. The way to say this was to have an explanation of ACORN's work placed separately from this. ACORN works to help etc., explaining in detail what they do and why what they do is important. THEN you say, completely separately, and probably much earlier in the piece that she didn't know she was being filmed, although I would probably drop that as it doesn't help the case. And you drop the "manipulate" business because it's simply too much. You can't go from "radical" to "important social vehicle" by calling people names. (yes, I recognize they did not write this article but if you post something on your organization's website, you may as well have written it as you implicitly endorse what it says unless you explicitly do not)

As I mentioned I don't know enough about ACORN's actions to make any statement on what they do but assuming they actually are working to help lower and middle income individuals have better lives, wouldn't it make more sense to present this as a matter of maintaining proper standards for living in our society, respect for our fellow man and reminding people that America is based on the belief that we help our neighbors when they need help? It just seems to me that if you stick with the fundamentals, stay on message and do a good job, you accomplish a lot. When you go the radical route, you lose most of your potential audience. It's an especially problematic angle to take as a non-profit and especially in America with regards to the issue of poverty and relative poverty since there is a notion that one is meant to pull oneself up by the bootstraps - not that it's right or anything like that, but people do believe that. So you have to get around that and you don't do it by being radical.