That’s “Emily Pellegrini” above again, the famed digital model created with the assistance of an AI program. For some reason Emily was not entered in the World AI Creator Awards, a beauty pageant for imaginary women. Go figure.
So…whose victory is more justifiable in a female beauty pageant today? A morbidly obese woman? A biological male? Or a woman who doesn’t exist at all?
Never mind. Find some beauty in ethics. If you can. I’ll settle for even virtual beauty.
Ethics Alarms 
Sent this to Jack earlier and did not give him a chance to write about it.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/wells-fargo-has-fired-a-bunch-of-employees-after-finding-out-they-were-pretending-to-work/ar-BB1odJGA?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Then again, there really is not much to say about it.
-Jut
What, exactly, was their output supposed to be?
“Wells Fargo holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behavior,” a company spokesman told Reuters.
I seem to recall that not being true….
I shared this article on several Usenet newsgroups and got this response.
https://narkive.com/Z3RwtMtv.4
Insert a discrete little module between
keyboard and computer. It should keep
sending “All work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy ” 🙂
Hey, sometimes it’s BUSY, sometimes
there’s just NOTHING to do … that’s
what reality looks like. Hey, ever
notice how EVERYBODY decides to go
to 7-11 or McDonalds or whatever
exactly when YOU do ? Surge/slack is
the nature of things (even IF
mysterious)
In any case, I think LESS of WF for
monitoring employee keyboard use for
wage-slave purposes. For SECURITY
purposes, a bank DOES have to be
extra careful, but that’s more a
matter of monitoring goings-on
in the main account databases.
Einstein was a quick study. In his job
as a patent clerk he could finish a
whole days quota in a few hours, leaving
him the rest of the day to work on
his neato new equations. The Boss
was not “cheated”, GOT his quota.
Many a truth is spoken in jest, and no one (IMO) jests the truth better’n the Babylon Bee:
As Russian Warships Threaten Florida Coast, Biden Responds Decisively To Ensure Safety Of All Pride Murals
PWS
I hate to break in on the forum, but I just read this hilarious post on Althouse’s blog, and attention should be paid.
She concludes, “Imagine getting fawned over for thinking of the idea that Trump is a villain and his opponent needs a story. Why is the NYT embarrassing itself by serving this pap?”
“A Friend” weighs in saying, “Bu…but…the Times readers criticize the article!” in 5…4…3…2..
Sacred excrement! So what the Biden campaign needs to do is to tell a story to the American populace which features Trump as the villain. Why didn’t anyone else think of that? Now all they have to do is find that right story.
In less than five months.
After years of painting Trump as a villain.
This is scraping the bottom of the barrel levels of desperation.
Like the countless articles I’m seeing claiming (again, ‘experts’ are coming out of the woodwork) claiming Trump has dementia. More desperate deflection. It’s so obvious!
Did anyone see the G7 footage yesterday of Biden waiting to have his hand shaken, after someone shook his hand first, shook 4-5 other people’s hands, and turned towards the podium to speak? 15 seconds at most, and he forgot. He stood there with his hand out, and then brought his hand up to his face. I unfortunately have a lot of experience with dementia. Joe is pretty impaired. I really feel sorry for him. His family and advisors should be ashamed.
One Yancey Ward responding to the comment that “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in The New York Times.”…
“I find this surprising since I doubt it is the stupidest thing in the paper just this morning.”
That was laugh-out-loud funny.
I saw that, and yes, I laughed out loud.
Hollywood has spent generations getting us to cheer on the plucky underdog rebel. It’s spent recent years telling us stories that analogize long established government and business institutions as a kind of monstrous creature and anyone against it is the good guy. It’s been spending tremendous effort these past two decades *recasting* many traditional villains as actually just misunderstood giants with hearts of gold or as victims pushed towards bad behavior by the evil establishment.
For the most part the public has bought this reworking of their appetites fully.
Now they want the public, on a dime to turn on the underdog rebel, being squashed by a government-business complex and see him as a villain.
The narrative is obviously working because too many unthinking progressives (but I repeat myself) actually think that they represent the “resistance”.
The narrative flip will not work on anyone else.
I’m surprised medical ethics rules permit “placebo” versions of surgery. You can’t really double-blind this kind of thing, unless you completely isolate the surgeon from lucid patient contact after the point the surgeon knows his surgery is selected by the study to be sham.
https://www.sciencealert.com/sham-surgery-can-actually-fix-our-bodies-so-why-are-some-against-it
It also brings to mind the faith-healer performances who use magician slight of hand tricks to present “blood” and “tumors” that they “remove” from their “patient”.
That’s a thing? That’s hilarious! “Look what I found behind your spleen! It’s a dime! An inexplicably clean dime.”
In (ahem…) practice, its actually quite messy… And incredibly convincing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_surgery
The gore and sympathetic responses in the audience really drive the show, much like the sawing in half, sword plunging, bullet catching and drowning acts of peril
That sounds like material for a great comedy/magic routine.
Pulls out a heart. “Whoops! Let me just put that back.”
Pulls out a diamond ring. “Oh, just some medical waste. I’ll just put that in my pocket for safekeeping, to make sure nobody slips on it.”
Pulls out a live goldfish. “We really need to talk about your diet.”
I’ve seen that routine!
As for the actual practice, I’d argue that if the incisions (and, I assume, the post-surgical exercises) are enough to heal people, then the physicians should just tell patients that’s what they’re doing and why. My (admittedly lay) understanding of medical and scientific ethics is that patients have to agree to participate in studies where they may receive a placebo instead of the treatment they expected. Presumably they would get a discount for participating in an experiment, as an incentive and because the results are less certain.
If someone has been deliberately deceived into accepting a treatment different from the one they agreed to, with no expectation of a possible variation on it, I would hope that at the very least they would be told about it later and refunded some of their money. Otherwise it’s fraud, even if the results were satisfactory. Informed consent is a huge part of medical ethics. People should be extremely wary of any technique that attempts to treat people using deception.
I double-checked the article, and apparently the goal is for it to be completely honest and transparent, so I do support that. Any experiments on its effectiveness should still have used informed consent to participate in an experiment.
Yeah, my only complaint with the article is labeling such procedures as ‘minimally invasive’, that term is already understood by the public as actual surgical procedures beyond “let’s cut the tissue in order to trigger natural healing processes to take over.”
https://www.cameo.com
In this service you pay celebrities to record messages for you.
Ala cake baker-
Can they refuse service? Like say an anti Jewish message? An anti gay message?
A pro gay message?
Yes, they absolutely can. Cameo isn’t just for special occasion messages. Those ordering Cameos can ask questions or just gush about how they think the celebrity is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The celebrities do reserve the right to accept or reject a Cameo request. They won’t get paid for it and the customer isn’t charged, but they are not required to do it.
The fan I wrote about a few months ago who crossed a line with her favorite actor had sent a Cameo request with a message that the performer in question almost certainly interpreted as unseemly and never filled the request as a result. Apparently, when she showed up to meet him in person, he told her that the request had been the final straw.
Interesting precedent. That someone can refuse speech despite being paid to do it.
Wonder what the celebrity’s opinions are on the infamous Cake Baker’s ability to refuse service?
I think we both know the answer to that question.
However, in the case of the Cameo, I can see where it might be hard to get celebrities to participate if they would be required to fill a request purchased by, say, an obsessed fan. Should a celebrity being pestered by a fan be required to fulfill a request that will likely only encourage the behavior?
There’s this article from Dear Abby’s 08/16/2023 column, as another example:
“DEAR ABBY: I am a 52-year-old woman. I am single and have no children, but I’m a loving aunt to many. I had an older sister who died before my older brother and I were born. She was born with special needs and lived for only 10 months. My parents never kept it a secret. Knowing I had an older sister makes me want to find a big sister figure. I sometimes fantasize that a particular beloved TV actress is my sister. She did a cameo video for my 50th birthday, and I have met her wonderful husband twice at fan conventions. I told him I thought his wife was a beautiful angel. I am not gay, but I love her. Am I weird? — FANGIRL IN WISCONSIN”
Abby, thankfully, directed her to find people closer to home to become surrogate sisters. Someone like “Fangirl” is in need of help. Fantasizing so hard on this actress that she’s ordering Cameo videos and going out of her way to meet the husband at conventions to talk to him about his wife is behavior that could escalate easily. Suppose she orders another Cameo and asks the actress to say, “You’re a sister to me.”?
Of course Emily Pellegrini isn’t entered in that contest!
If you check at the bottom of that link, you’ll learn that she (it?) is one of the judges! And it would certainly be unethical to be a contestant under those circumstances, right?
Lol. Watching Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark-
Came on with the rating and then “warnings”- you know, some movies say “nudity” or “strong language” or “drug use” etc-
Well, the warning for Raiders was:
“Some tobacco use”
Never mind the scene of people being massacred by the wrath of god or other violent scenes.
Gonna warn us about tobacco use but not the casual drinking game?
Or heads melting and exploding. Or a guy being shredded by a propeller.
Yep
The one that’s been really driving me batty is the number of people who are censoring themselves with any potentially disturbing words. K*ll, m*rder and s*cide are bad enough to trip over in writing, but they’re starting to show up beeped in videos, along with an ever increasing number of “bad” words. Sorry, I suppose I mean “ungood” words.