¹ Nowadays, at least sometimes, we use the word to refer to something more chronic that needs a response akin to long-term care or long-term lifestyle adjustment rather than to first aid. For immediate purposes, suffice it to stipulate that an ‘emergency’ is an existential crisis. Calling the U.S. National Guard is a way of responding to a perceived emergency, whereas “defunding the police” is a structural response to what is seen as an ongoing crisis. More generally, readers come in thinking they know what the terms mean. In that respect, ordinary language terms are not ours to redefine—so we aim to work with that rather than against incoming understandings. Definitions may be illuminating, but they should not be surprising.

² On the other hand, ChatGPTx is now one thread in a fabric of distractions that seems to be numbing many students to a point where they do not see education as anything more than learning to create an appearance of meeting course requirements. Are there pivotal stages of maturation where human beings need to acquire skills involved in paying attention? What if they have never gotten through a meal (or even a traffic light), much less a lecture, without sending a text message or multi-tasking in some way? What if, for them, asking “What would it be like to concentrate” is as mysterious and as novel as “What is it like to be a bat?” was when I was young?

³ If you type “U.S. Federal Debt” into a search engine, you will immediately see a current number. You also can find information on Federal Revenues, national income, etc.

Note: Deficit equals expenses minus revenues in a fiscal year, so increasing revenues is—in theory—one of two ways to close a deficit. The trouble in observable practice is that revenues are increasing (roughly tripling since the year 2000), but aiming to increase revenues is like aiming to fill a bucket by opening the spigot. It should help, but it can’t help much if the real problem is that the water is gushing out of a hole in the bottom.

⁴ “What Is the National Debt Today?” Peter G. Peterson Foundation, https://www.pgpf.org/national-debt-clock#what-is-it-costing-us.

⁵ “Unfunded Mandates,” Ballotpedia, https://ballotpedia.org/Unfunded_mandates. As of Fiscal Year 2023, total state expenditures are around three trillion dollars. More than 29 percent of that goes to Medicaid, while less than 9 percent goes to higher education, and less than 19 percent goes to K–12 education.

⁶ See the table and data of “Summary: 2023 State Expenditure Report,” 2–4, National Association of State Budget Officers, downloadable at https://www.nasbo.org/reports-data/state-expenditure-report.

⁷ “Federal Outlays: Interest,” FRED Economic Data, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOINT.

⁸ Paul Krugman, “Why We Should But Won’t Reduce the Budget Deficit,” New York Times, October 10, 2023, expresses similar concerns, www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/opinion/us-budget-deficit-interest-rates.html?.

⁹ I tried without success to find an expert to explain this topic for this volume. Failing that, in a volume on global crises, even if all I can do is to acknowledge that the topic needs our attention, I felt obliged to at least do that.

¹⁰ See Lomasky, Loren, “Liberty After Lehman Brothers,” Social Philosophy & Policy 28, no. 2 (2011): 135–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ Cannon, Michael F., “Health Policy As If People Mattered,” Social Philosophy & Policy 41, no. 2 (forthcoming)Google Scholar, notes that German scientists validated the first COVID-19 diagnostic test on January 13, 2020. Yet, for months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibited public health officials from using those tests. Cannon says that the FDA granted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the first, and for a time only, regulatory approval in the U.S. of a COVID-19 diagnostic test. But the CDC contaminated its own lab and sent test kits around the country that were useless by virtue of being contaminated, leading some scientists to put themselves in legal jeopardy by developing and using COVID-19 diagnostic tests without FDA approval. What would justify trusting any agency to be the authority on what is worth a try?

¹² Hampton’s, Jean “Selflessness and the Loss of Self,” Social Philosophy & Policy 10, no. 1 (1993): 135–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is a classic on this issue, although that wasn’t her name for it.

¹³ See Social Philosophy & Policy 35, no. 2 (2018) for a special issue devoted to the topic of corruption.

¹⁴ David Baker and Will Wade, “Giant Laser from ‘Star Trek’ to Be Tested in Fusion Breakthrough,” Bloomberg, December 21, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-21/nuclear-fusion-energy-breakthrough-tests-world-s-largest-laser-star-trek-style?leadSource=uverify%20wall.

¹⁵ See Brenda Goodman, “Sperm Counts May Be Declining Globally, Review Finds, Adding to Debate Over Male Fertility,” CNN, November 18, 2002, https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/18/health/sperm-counts-decline-debate/index.html.

But see also Christina Szalinski, “Are Sperm Counts Really Declining?” Scientific American, June 1, 2023, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-sperm-counts-really-declining/

¹⁶ See the next issue of Social Philosophy & Policy on the topic of ideology.