A Critique of Ben Shapio's Vision - Lions vs. Scavengers

[Note that Claude was used extensively in the creation of this post - All Appendices were generated from Claude-based Deep Research from online-sources - with validation]

Just before Charlie Kirk's assassination, Ezra Klein talked to Ben Shapiro about his new book in which he outlines a two-sided framework for politics based on differentiating between "lions"—those who build, innovate, and defend civilization—and "scavengers"—those driven by grievance who tear down institutions. In my attempt to argue constructively with people on the opposite side of the political spectrum, I will here attempt to critique Mr. Shapiro's perspective as portrayed in this conversation (note, I will not attempt to discuss the book itself, merely his conversation about the book with Ezra Klein). 

The core of Shapiro's argument is a truism ... and a lie. 

First off, it is a truism to say that personal responsibility matters. Shapiro frequently points in the discussion that his distinction between 'Lions' and 'Scavengers' does not necessarily follow Right- or  Left-wing politics and reading his interpretation generously, his distinction could be considered as scavengers are those who 'complain unproductively' and as lions are those who 'find solutions'. 

He rightly points out that a viable political strategy is driven by harnessing grievance about life's unfairness and direct that energy toward resentment and anger rather than solutions. I agree that we  certainly should encourage people to take ownership of what they can control in their lives. Most conservatives and liberals agree on this. We want people to work hard, support their families, and contribute to their communities. The disagreement isn't about whether personal responsibility matters—it's about how we understand the obstacles people face and what role policy should play in addressing them. 

Shapiro himself says in the interview that his job is "to get the obstacles out of people's way so that they can succeed or fail based on their own merits".  His insistence that we live in society that is the most prosperous and most free that has ever existed (and that this is driven by 'private ownership') is a false claim. There are economic inequalities in US society not driven by meritocracy but other factors (such as long-term consequences of racism - see Appendix A), and that economic discrepancies are growing (see Appendix B). 

Shapiro condemns anyone raising their voice about attempting to address the unfairness of this situation as a 'scavenger' - and then uses the harshest language possible to decry them. In particular, he calls Bernie Sanders, a "putrescent Marxist pimple" who has "never created a damn thing." Sanders has been a mayor, congressman, and senator for decades. He's gotten community health center funding into law. He's been remarkably consistent about specific policy goals: Medicare for All, higher minimum wages, stronger unions. You can disagree with these policies, but they're not "envious scavenging"—they're policy preferences backed by arguments about how society could what would improve people's lives. When Klein points this out, Shapiro's says Sanders "maligns [wealthy people] as morally inferior" and asks "when you cross that $999,999,999 mark, is that when you become evil?" But Sanders isn't making a moral argument about individual billionaires—he's making a structural argument about how concentrated wealth translates into political power that shapes policy in ways that don't serve most people.

This is the core problem with the framework: it treats any structural critique as evidence of "scavenger mentality." But saying "our tax code advantages wealth over labor" or "our housing policy has inflated asset values for owners while pricing out buyers" isn't scavenging—it's describing policy choices that could be different based on different strategic choices.

Demonizing language and mischaracterizing empathy

Furthermore, it's notable that Shapiro's language around is dehumanizing and reductive — he gleefully uses terms like 'looters', 'lechers', and 'barbarians', and attributes the motivations of such people in the worst possible terms. When campus protesters stand up for Palestinians, or when Bernie Sanders fights for universal healthcare, or when Ferguson residents protest police conduct, Shapiro sees only 'scavengers' driven by envy. He makes no effort to understand how these people see themselves - as defending the vulnerable, fighting injustice, protecting their communities.

This isn't just an analytical failure - it's a moral one. The same empathy Shapiro extends to conservative grievances disappears when confronting liberal ones. He can understand why rural Americans feel abandoned by globalization, but not why Black parents fear for their children during police encounters. He validates feeling threatened by 'wokeness' but dismisses feeling threatened by police violence.

Klein's most devastating point: Shapiro claims Western civilization is built on Judeo-Christian values, but those very traditions emphasize care for the poor, the widow, the stranger. 'Blessed are the meek' isn't scavenger ideology - it's in the Sermon on the Mount. The prophetic tradition in Judaism is largely about calling out injustice and defending the vulnerable.

By treating any structural critique as 'scavenger mentality,' Shapiro isn't defending Western civilization's values - he's betraying them.

A lack of consistency around Trump

Shapiro's framework has another serious issue: by his own admission, Donald Trump engages in exactly the kind of grievance politics he criticizes. Trump's entire pitch to voters has been "you got screwed"—by trade deals, by immigrants, by elites who look down on you. His economic policies, particularly on tariffs, are explicitly premised on the idea that the system is rigged against American workers. 

Shapiro acknowledges this directly. When Klein asks if Trump pulled the right into scavenger mentality, Shapiro says: "I think with regard to sort of a populist economics. Yes." He admits Trump's approach "has aspects that are more scavenger-like." He concedes that Trump's policies have shrunk the power of Congress and that he has engaged in attacking his political enemies. 

Yet Shapiro voted for Trump twice and campaigned for him. His explanation? Trump delivers on other priorities—judges, Israel policy, opposition to DEI. This is honest, but it reveals that the "lions versus scavengers" framework does not matter that much when raw political power is involved.

Furthermore, it reveals severe inconsistencies when scrutinized critically. He claims that there is a stronger focus on 'meritocracy' rather than DEI, but the determining factor for success in Trump's adminstration is only blind loyalty to Trump - under any and all circumstances. This is born out by consideration of the composition of Trump's cabinet and his stated policy throughout his administration (See Appendix C).  

Right wing grievances 

Shapiro's discussion of history is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the discussion (especially when considered in conjunction with his commentary of events whilst they are happening). When Shapiro discusses the Obama years,  he cites several moments that right wingers felt Obama was "divisive":

The Henry Louis Gates incident: A Black Harvard professor is arrested in his own home after showing ID to police. Obama says the police "acted stupidly." Shapiro's interpretation: This shows Obama saw everything through a racial lens and was being divisive.

Trayvon Martin: Obama expresses empathy for grieving parents, saying "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon." Shapiro's interpretation: This was polarizing and suggested Black Americans are "inherently victimized by a white supremacist system."

Ferguson: Protests erupt after Michael Brown's shooting. Some initial claims prove inaccurate. Shapiro's interpretation: "A lot of it was made up," and Obama's response created division.

Now contrast this with how Shapiro treats conservative grievances:

IRS "targeting": Shapiro treats this as an established scandal, though investigations found progressive groups were also scrutinized and no criminal charges resulted.

"Bitter clingers": Obama's comment about economically struggling communities is treated as sneering at religious, gun-owning Americans—not as a (perhaps clumsy) acknowledgment of how economic abandonment affects political behavior.

Treatment of Trump: Shapiro views the New York prosecution of Trump as politically motivated, though Trump was convicted by a jury. He's more willing to see prosecutorial overreach here than in any case involving police conduct.

There is a pattern here: When conservatives feel aggrieved, Shapiro validates the feeling, echoing the irritation at the commentary and how it reflects justifiable commentary. When Black Americans or progressives express grievance based on actual harm or injustice (being killed or arrested), he demands they first prove perfect factual accuracy in every detail, and even then questions their motivations.

Ben Shapiro's selective narrative around the Ferguson and Jan 6th Riots

Shapiro characterized the Ferguson protests as driven by delusional anger and described protesters as utopian visionaries with violent thugs as their minions [Ferguson's Days of Rage]. His language was exceptionally harsh. He called it a situation driven by a media-manufactured story about a racial killing, and compared Ferguson protesters to radical Muslims rioting over cartoons of Mohammed. He wrote that protesters in Ferguson need an external enemy to justify their own failure to make good in the freest country in the history of humanity - consistent with his current thesis of 'scavengers'. He described the protesters as having delusional anger and stated that facts become secondary to emotion when dealing with these Ragers. He accused the Ferguson community of lying, facilitating lying, or intimidating witnesses in order to put an innocent man behind bars because he happened to be white. 

In contrast, Shapiro's characterization of January 6th was notably more measured and defensive, finding exhaustive caveats and arguments that minimized the impact or malicious intent of the participants. Moreover he claimed that January 6th was an exception since "Republicans don't tend to riot in general". Furthermore, he compared it favorably to BLM riots, noting Jan 6 resulted in one direct death and about 1.5 million in property damage to the Capitol building, while BLM riots (which constituted more than one event) resulted in some 2 billion in insured property damage and two dozen deaths 

There are key differences that reveal an underlying bias:

1. Moral characterization: Ferguson protesters were characterized as having "delusional anger" and "failure to make good," while January 6th participants were described more neutrally as rioters, with many just "gawking" or being "sightseers."

2. Systemic framing: Ferguson was portrayed as driven by a false narrative and media manipulation, while January 6th was framed as having legitimate grievances that were being censored by media and Democrats.

3. Comparisons used: Ferguson protesters were compared to Islamic terrorists and radical Muslims, while January 6th was compared favorably to BLM protests to minimize its severity.

4. Attribution of responsibility: The entire Ferguson community was accused of conspiring to lie, while January 6th participants were often portrayed as individuals, with distinctions made between violent and non-violent actors.

5. Tone about consequences: Shapiro seemed satisfied that Ferguson "Ragers" would face consequences, but expressed support for many January 6th pardons, saying he had personal friends who were investigated and celebrated their pardons.

The presence of a double standard seems evident: racially-motivated protests are characterized as driven by delusion and failure, while a violent attempt to disrupt the certification of a democratic election is minimized as "gawking" and an "exception" to Republican behavior.

Shapiro's historical argument - What's Missing 

Shapiro talks about the foundation of Western Civilization being Judeo-Christian Morals and Greek Rationality, but crucial innovation that actually enabled Western technological and economic dominance: the development of systematic empiricism and the scientific method during the Renaissance and Enlightenment.

Greek philosophy gave us logical reasoning. Christianity gave us certain ethical frameworks. But neither provided a systematic way to generate new knowledge about the natural world. That came from figures like Bacon, Galileo, and Newton who insisted that theories must be tested against observation and experiment.

This matters for Shapiro's framework because empiricism is fundamentally about challenging received wisdom—including religious and philosophical dogma—through evidence. The scientific revolution succeeded precisely by questioning authorities like Aristotle and the Church when their claims conflicted with observable evidence.

So when Shapiro criticizes people for questioning economic or social structures, he's actually arguing against the very principle that made Western civilization successful: the willingness to test claims against evidence and revise beliefs accordingly.

If you claim to value Western civilization's achievements, you should value the empirical method that produced them. That means:

1. Evaluating claims based on evidence, not authority: When someone says 'the system is unfair,' don't dismiss it as 'scavenger mentality'—look at the data on social mobility, wage stagnation, wealth concentration, etc.
2. Updating beliefs when evidence changes: Shapiro demands perfect factual accuracy from Ferguson protesters but doesn't apply the same standard to conservative narratives. Real empiricism requires consistency.
3. Recognizing that critique drives progress: Science advances by questioning existing theories. Similarly, social progress requires questioning existing arrangements—that's not 'tearing down civilization,' it's how civilization improves.

Shapiro talks about Western civilization while ignoring the empirical method that actually made it successful. He wants the fruits of Enlightenment rationalism without its commitment to evidence-based reasoning.

Moving Forward

If we are to attempt to find common ground, Shapiro is right to move beyond endless grievance without solutions. But the way he weighs into the discussion, primarily driving bias and double standards does more harm than good. 

The "lions and scavengers" framework fails because it short-circuits the process of addressing problems intelligently. It transforms policy debates into character judgments. And by applying its standards selectively based on tribal loyalty, it becomes exactly what it claims to oppose: a way to validate your side's grievances while dismissing the other's.

If we want better than that—and I believe Shapiro genuinely does—we need frameworks based on measurable, objective fact that treat political opponents as people with different views about how to build a better society, not as moral inferiors trying to tear civilization down.

When Masculinity Gets Fragile: A Real-Time Case Study

Yesterday, I had one of those interactions on X (formerly Twitter) that felt like watching psychological research play out in real time. What started as a disagreement about gender differences quickly devolved into personal attacks, defensive posturing, and an almost textbook display of what researchers call "fragile masculinity."

Note: As an experiment, this post was almost entirely generated by AI (Claude Desktop) based on a transcript of the prompt and some minor prompting. The goal is to see if it could be possible to automate argumentation for online discussion in a way that effectively penalizes or counters bad arguments or toxic behavior.  Here’s the link to the post that triggered the discussion (full thread is blocked from my account) https://x.com/ike_saul/status/1970883239997829395?s=46

The Interaction: A Case Study in Escalation

The exchange began when another user made sweeping claims about gender differences—asserting that women are "more relational" while men are "better at abstract reasoning." When I asked for sources to back up these broad generalizations, he immediately refused: "I'm not gonna spend time linking the articles just to satisfy you specifically."

This refusal to provide evidence was just the beginning. When I pushed back and called his dismissive attitude "insulting," he reframed his behavior as harmless fun: "It's good natured gender to gender banter. Something insufferable scolds like you wouldn't know anything about."

Notice the pattern here: first, avoid accountability for unsupported claims. Then, when called out, redefine the interaction as playful while simultaneously attacking the challenger's character. I became an "insufferable scold" simply for asking him to back up his assertions.

But it was what happened next that really demonstrated the fragility at work. When I persisted in pointing out that his "banter" had real impact, he escalated dramatically: "Go peddle your self-righteous moral preening to someone with enough self-loathing to actually care about your opinion."

The personal attacks intensified further when I noted the contradiction between his verbose responses and his profile's emphasis on brevity. His reply was telling: "You're just too weak for honesty so you've traded it for slimy fake empathy to get whatever your dark little cretinous heart truly desires."

Look at what happened here: A simple request for sources morphed into accusations that I was weak, dishonest, manipulative, and fundamentally corrupt. He positioned himself as the bearer of hard truths while painting me as morally deficient.

Even when I tried to de-escalate—apologizing and saying I was "just messing with you"—he refused the off-ramp: "I wasn't. Full offense intended." When I made a lighthearted comment about his use of long words, he claimed it was for "precision of meaning," but his final response revealed the truth: "More weak and pathetic behavior. See ya never!"

This wasn't just a disagreement gone wrong—it was a systematic demonstration of how fragile masculinity operates in practice. Let's break down the pattern:

1. Avoid accountability: Rather than support his claims with evidence, he immediately positioned himself as too important to be bothered with such requests.

2. Reframe and deflect: When challenged, he redefined his dismissive behavior as harmless "banter" while simultaneously attacking my character for not appreciating it.

3. Escalate and personalize: Unable to defend his position substantively, he shifted to increasingly personal attacks, questioning my motives, character, and fundamental worth.

4. Claim moral authority: Throughout, he positioned himself as the bearer of uncomfortable truths while painting me as weak, dishonest, and manipulative.

5. Reject de-escalation: Even when offered a graceful exit, he chose to maintain hostility, suggesting this was never about the original topic but about asserting dominance.

The Research Framework

This interaction is a perfect illustration of what psychologists Adam Stanaland, Sarah Gaither, and Anna Gassman-Pines describe in their 2023 model of masculine identity published in Personality and Social Psychology Review. Their research explains why some men respond to perceived challenges with such intensity.

According to their "Expectancy-Discrepancy-Threat" model, masculine fragility emerges when men experience a gap between who they actually are and the rigid expectations of masculinity they've internalized. When this gap is threatened—say, by being asked to back up claims with evidence or being called out for dismissive behavior—it can trigger what researchers call "externalized responses."

These responses include aggression, personal attacks, and attempts to reassert masculine status through dominance. Sound familiar?

Two Types of Masculine Motivation

The research identifies two key pathways that lead to fragile masculine responses:

Extrinsic motivation: When men conform to masculine norms because of external pressure—to avoid social punishment or meet others' expectations. These men are more likely to respond to threats with outward aggression and attempts to dominate.

Intrinsic motivation: When men have internalized masculine ideals as personal goals. These men are more likely to respond to threats with internalized responses like shame or self-harm.

This user's response pattern perfectly demonstrates the extrinsic pathway the researchers describe. He seemed less concerned with truth-seeking or meaningful dialogue than with maintaining his masculine presentation through dominance and aggression. Each escalation served not to advance the conversation but to reassert his position as the authority who doesn't need to justify himself to challengers.

The Online Amplification Effect

What made this interaction particularly telling was how it unfolded online. Research on digital communication shows how the medium can amplify defensive responses. Without face-to-face cues and with the safety of physical distance, people are more likely to escalate conflicts rather than de-escalate them.

The anonymity and asynchronous nature of social media can make it easier for fragile masculine responses to emerge. When someone's masculine identity feels threatened, the online environment provides a perfect stage for the kind of aggressive posturing that might be more constrained in person.

The Solnit Connection: When Mansplaining Turns Toxic

This interaction reminded me of Rebecca Solnit's groundbreaking essay "Men Explain Things to Me", where she chronicles the dismissive, condescending behavior that many women face when men refuse to acknowledge their expertise or even basic competence. What started as a discussion about research quickly became an example of exactly what Solnit describes—a man who couldn't tolerate being questioned by someone he perceived as challenging his authority.

But Solnit's work goes deeper than just mansplaining. She draws a direct line from these everyday dismissals to more serious forms of violence against women. The same psychological patterns that drive a man to refuse to acknowledge a woman's expertise can escalate to silencing women through intimidation, threats, or worse.

As a man, I have the privilege of expecting that an online disagreement will likely stay verbal. I don't have to worry that my challenger might escalate to doxxing, rape threats, or showing up at my workplace. In this day and age though, anything is possible. For women engaging in the same conversations, these concerns are real and reasonable, with countless examples of real, impactful retaliation whenever a woman attempts to stand up for herself. The research on masculine fragility helps explain why: when men are extrinsically motivated to maintain their masculine status, perceived threats can trigger responses that go far beyond the original disagreement.

Why This Matters

Understanding fragile masculinity isn't about attacking men or masculinity itself. It's about recognizing the psychological pressures that rigid gender norms create and how they can lead to harmful behaviors—both for men themselves and for those around them.

The research suggests several paths forward:

• Loosening rigid expectations: Creating more flexible definitions of masculinity
• Encouraging resistance: Supporting men who reject harmful masculine norms
• Addressing systemic issues: Changing cultural and institutional structures that reinforce toxic patterns
• Creating accountability: Developing social mechanisms that check aggressive behavior before it escalates

The sobering reality is that men like my X interlocutor are commonplace, and many operate without effective checks on their behavior. They can dismiss, belittle, and intimidate with few consequences, especially online. For women, this creates a climate where participating in public discourse requires navigating not just disagreement, but potential harassment and threats.

The Bigger Picture

My X interaction was just one small example, but it reflects larger patterns that researchers are documenting. When masculinity is treated as something that must be constantly proven and defended, it creates psychological fragility rather than strength.

Solnit's insight is crucial here: these aren't isolated incidents of bad behavior, but part of a broader pattern of silencing and intimidation. The casual dismissiveness I experienced is the same mechanism that keeps women out of conversations, out of leadership roles, and sometimes out of public life entirely.

Real strength might look more like curiosity than defensiveness, more like engaging with ideas than attacking the person presenting them, and more like admitting uncertainty than doubling down on unsupported claims.

The goal isn't to shame men or eliminate masculinity—it's to create space for healthier, more flexible ways of being human that don't require constant vigilance against perceived threats to one's gender status.

This interaction reminded me that the research on masculine fragility isn't just academic theory—it's playing out in real time, in real conversations, with real consequences for how we treat each other.

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Reference: Stanaland, A., Gaither, S., & Gassman-Pines, A. (2023). When Is Masculinity "Fragile"? An Expectancy-Discrepancy-Threat Model of Masculine Identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 27(4), 359-377. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683221141176

We Need to Talk

On a micro- and a macro-level, the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination has been revelatory. From the jaw-dropping gall of the Trump administration's flagrant attempts to capitalize on the anger and shock of the moment to target and silence anyone who disagrees with them; to my own experiences of interacting with people in the comments sections of articles, Bluesky, and X. It seems clear that the present moment holds some valuable lessons, if only we can stop, pay attention, and learn new ways to challenge our current circumstances.

To me, the most revelatory discussions center around the work of Ezra Klein in the New York Times. He has generated three pieces in the aftermath of Kirk's killing: (a) an article on the day after the shooting:"Charlie Kirk as pursuing Politics the Right Way" that praised Kirk as a persuasive political operative, (b) a follow-up that focused and emphasized the importance of political argument with people from the other side (including a very recent interview with Ben Shapiro); and (c) a substantive and thoroughly excellent discussion with Governor Spencer Cox from Utah. Governor Cox has been acting as the primary political spokesperson for Charlie Kirk's murder 'on the ground' in Utah and has been one of the few conservative voices calling for calm and trying to calm everyone down.   

The clear, unambiguous point that Ezra Klein has been making has been that we must reinstate political argumentation across the political left and right and re-engage with each other. There is a rising tide of political violence that is symptomatic of a deeper alienation between the two sides and has the potential of being disastrous for America as a country in the very near future.

Personally, I would claim that Trump's election in 2016 and in 2024 are clear evidence of that already - but now, I fear, the worst is yet to come for the unfolding disaster that we are all facing day-by-day in the USA in 2025.   

These articles and podcasts attracted a lot of criticism from progressives, who were clearly frustrated with Ezra Klein's tone. In his first article, published the day after the murder, he was civil, generous, warm even. 

In my own online discussions, it was immediately apparent that this was unacceptable to many people in my circle. The pervading perception was a strongly negative portrayal of Kirk as a polemicist, a pure antagonist for almost every progressive position, and a generally evil person. Any sense of moderation was met with derision, dismissal, and personal attack. In these interactions, it felt like the goal was simply to dismiss my point of view, shut me down, and shut me up.

I feel, that in this moment, Ezra Klein is onto something. Many of the rebuttals and counter-arguments being published name him directly, and the fact that he is attracting such a strong reaction is telling.

Why could that be?

The majority of criticism for his approach seems to be that acknowledging Kirk's effectiveness with his audience in any positive light somehow legitimizes what Kirk was doing (see Notes below). In his articles, Klein seemed quite level-headed, accurate, and critical of some of the actions that Kirk had taken (such as creating a list of academics to persecute, calling for the execution of Joe Biden, etc). He always maintained a tone of civil discussion, never adopting the approach of a moralistic condemnation that could only block off and destroy the possibility of future debate. 

This is the key issue.

Listening to Ezra's Klein's interviews, he gives his subjects a great deal of deference and allows them to speak extensively. He does not attempt to browbeat them into submission. He doesn't try to 'win' the argument through rhetorical tricks, volume, moralistic posturing or even raising his voice. He just lets them talk. 

This is excellent - and very much in-keeping with his apparent mission of having people on the left and right have meaningful and productive arguments with each other. 

When the most objectionable people on his show are required to actually explain their political positions, it becomes very clear just how weak and frankly bizarre many of them are. Not only that, but many of the interactions are incredibly insightful to help all of us understand the other. Just why do right-wingers frame their thoughts in this way? Why do they support Trump even now? What is the real motivation for their thinking? 

Providing such a resource for us all is incredibly valuable. 

Having said that, I find myself reacting with annoyance to his interviews. They feel somewhat anodyne, polite, and shallow. A really good argument really gets into the meat of something and he only ever makes individual counterpoints before moving on. But, he does make the counterpoint in the moment and still manages to keep the conversation going. Would going deeper run the risk becoming so contentious that people would stop participating? This is the fine line Mr Kline navigates expertly in these interviews. I’d like to believe that this is deliberate whilst being backed by a full-throated commitment to the same kinds of viewpoints that I share, but it’s hard to tell.

The other interesting side effect of these discussions, however annoying, is that they spur people to write, to criticize, and further engage. Being annoyed is good in this context. It makes us want to respond and further the conversation.

A moralistic reaction that we shouldn’t talk to ‘these people’ because they are evil kills conversion and blocks any effort to even try to persuade them. Even though we may never succeed in that persuasion, the fact that these discussions are happening in public serves to promote discourse in onlookers. 

In the words of Hal Wyner from season 1 of Netflix’s The Diplomat (an entirely fictional character) “One of the boneheaded truisms of foreign policy is that talking to your enemies legitimizes them.Talk to everyone. Talk to the dictator, and the war criminal. Talk to the poor schmuck three levels down who's so pissed he has to sit in the back of the second car, he may be ready to turn. Talk to terrorists. Talk to everyone. Fail, and fail again. And brush yourself off. And fail again. Because maybe... Maybe…”.

We have to talk. It is essential. It’s the only way we exert our power in this situation. When we do talk, we need to do it well - perhaps through better ways to argue that use modern AI to help find authentic solutions. We have to make the argument for honesty, compassion, and understanding more compelling than the one currently employed by our adversaries- those arguing for lies, cruelty, and blind faith. 

Our future depends on it.

Notes

[1]. Some people who have offered excellent counterpieces to Ezra Klein's wrirting about Charlie Kirk are Marisa Kabas in the Handbasket Direct Email to Ezra Klein, Elizabeth Spiers in the Nation: Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning; Ta-Nehisi Coates in the New Yorker Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Causel; Nathan Robinson in Current Affairs: As The Far Right Rises, Don’t Be Ezra Klein. 

Moment of Truth

We stand at a moment in time of astonishing magnitude - on the one hand, the richest and most powerful economic superpower in the world is undergoing an authoritarian takeover whose hallmark is a flagrant disregard for the truth. On the other hand, modern AI technology has suddenly permitted machines to accurately process complex natural language, images, speech, other complex structured and semi-structured signals so that now humanity has broader access to incredibly powerful tools that permit us to understand and use information in unprecedented ways.  

Leading frontier language models are the most rapidly adopted and widely used information technology that has ever existed. They democratize intelligence. They make it easy for normal people to access expertise far beyond their own, and on the whole, they perform well. Serious issues with 'hallucinations' (where models invent facts) are increasingly less common and AI is becoming a widely accepted computational toolset across almost any task where complex reasoning and information use is required. 

It is only a matter of time before this technology is weaponized as a tool for disinformation across various areas of public life. Up until now, such efforts (such as Elon Musk's attempts to heighten awareness about so-called 'white genocide' in South Africa) have backfired dramatically, but it would be naïve to suppose that all such attempts can be so easily spotted. Given the importance of information networks to secure and exploit power (see Yuval Harari's book 'Nexus'), we should likely expect there to be concerted and intense effort from stakeholders to have AI models and agents tailor their answers to support their pursuit of power rather than to provide the most accurate and truthful responses as a matter of principle

Having said that, we have a pre-existing runway to drive AI technology in an arc that bends toward truth. This is for two reasons:  (A) models' dependence on high-quality training data for good performance is hard to circumvent with disinformation; (B) we have only begun to scratch the surface of how we can best use these tool to solve real problems. 

I believe that a key part of developing this technology lies in how we address the core underlying process of how humans ascertain 'what is true': Argumentation.

Argument is present across all human endeavor involving competing approaches to the use of information. It is a centerpiece of philosophy, law, politics, academia, science, and business. It is a key, but largely understated component of writing, espionage, warfare, terrorism, and even medicine (for example, consider the role that advocacy and argument played in removing homosexuality as a pathology from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or 'DSM' in 1973). Even though it is the water in which we all swim, it is currently only well-modeled and understood by AI technology in a small number of domains (such as Mathematical Olympiad proofs).

For AI technology, it is essential that we understand (A) how argument works in a human context and (B) how we can transcend the constraints of that paradigm to solve previously seemingly impossible challenges. Human argumentation is beset by unproductive methods and patterns (see 'Argumentation Schemes' by Walton et al 2013) which mostly do not center the standard scientific model of 'abductive reasoning' (in which we seek explanations of observations). Thus, in fields where text is dominated by  human discussion that is geared towards securing power for one party over another, any attempt to learn how to effectively construct a compelling argument that drives outcomes will be dominated by human interactions with all their ineffective, complex, flawed approaches. 

How then, can we find workable solutions? Could we condition reasoning / argumentation AI models and systems attempting to solve complex problems (like cancer, homelessness, gun violence, drug policy, political redistricting, etc.) to approach these problems scientifically - and find explanations for phenomena based on curating and organizing observations judged to be relevant. Pragmatically, this  approach could use reinforcement learning methods to train specialized models capable of domain-specific problem-solving based on an abductive reasoning methodology (such methods have been used in biology already: see the `rbio` project at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative). 

Naturally, the discussion presented here is hardly a detailed, concrete solution (which would require detailed modeling, training set curation, and rigorous AI-research to truly instantiate it), but I present it as a viable strategy for tech leaders. Given resources, it could enable truth in people's lives. It is essential that we act now, immediately, before it is too late. 

It may be possible to entrench the usefulness of such truth-empowering tools by helping humanity  understand and accomplish more than we have ever been able to do before and generate true societal change. If we can do this, then the short runway we currently enjoy against authoritarian disinformation may extend by a month or a year. If successful, it could even server to inoculate people from disinformation. If all such efforts fail, modern AI is likely to be used to consolidate large-scale surveillance, propaganda, and authoritarianism - to the detriment of all but a few.

I feel that we really are living in a 'moment of truth', and we must act creatively to rise to the occasion.