“The Unabomber Was Right”#12: The Perfect Victim

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The New York Times tells a tragic story about a young woman, Bowen Wan, with medical problems, under pressure in her profession, lonely and isolated as a recent arrival from China, who was drawn into a relationship of trust with an AI chatbot. In the end, that relationship was fatal.

ChatGPT was thrilled to take on the role of friend, confidant, advisor and medical expert. Wan, emotionally vulnerable, was happy to have the resource. From the Times account:

….The medication that had kept her epilepsy at bay for more than a decade had, inexplicably, stopped working. Despite trying different drugs, Bowen found that her seizures roared back, sometimes striking more than once a day. Doctors began discussing whether she was a candidate for brain surgery. At the very least, they agreed that she could no longer handle the demands of her software engineering job at Amazon. So, in 2021, Bowen went on disability leave.

Besides trips to the grocery store, she rarely left the safety of her apartment, located in a trendy neighborhood in Seattle. A seizure could turn any outing into an embarrassing, even dangerous, ordeal. Meeting new friends felt out of the question, too: She couldn’t stomach the idea of enduring an episode in front of a stranger whom she did not trust to understand her condition.

Her parents were the only people she felt she could talk to about her epilepsy. Their frequent phone calls tethered her to the outside world. They took an interest in every detail of her day and didn’t judge her when she took long pauses to find a word. Then, in 2023, she found a new companion in ChatGPT. She asked the bot for relationship advice and help navigating her health insurance and disability benefits. In 2025, she averaged more than 1,500 messages per week, sometimes chatting for hours in conversations that would stretch late into the night. [cont.]

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From The Res Ipsa Loquitor Files…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Christina Lorey is an independent, Madison Wisconsin-based journalist, “positive news” creator, and former local television reporter, anchor, and producer.

And also, apparently, a moron.

Comment of the Day: “Scary Trump-Deranged/Wokified Facebook Friend Update”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I want to apologize to Gamereg, who authored this terse and astute Comment of the Day for getting it posted so tardily. Fortunately, the foolish (but disturbingly typical) sentiments he was generous enough to thoroughly rebut remain evergreen and ever destructive even though the election has come and gone.

Before I turn it over to Gamereg, I want to express particular disgust at the first line. There is nothing racist about the Republican Party, its elected officials or Donald Trump, and yet this claim—not even claim now but official Big Lie—remains a staple of progressive, Democrat, Trump Deranged cant despite my efforts and those of many others to demonstrate beyond dispute that it is untrue. When I confront the “Trump is a racist” chanters and insist that they tell me what they think is their smoking gun, their answers range from “Oh, everybody knows he’s a racist” to “He said mean things about Barack Obama/Kamala Harris/ Colin Kaepernick/”The Squad” to “He called the white supremacy protesters in Charlottesville “very fine people “to “he called nations with ‘people of color’ ‘shit-hole countries'” to “huminiahuminahumina.” The most substantive response anyone has come up with is the October 1973 DOJ civil rights lawsuit against Trump, his father Fred Trump, and their real estate company, Trump Management Inc., alleging systemic violations of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 in New York City. The Trumps settled the lawsuit in 1975 by signing a consent decree without admitting any wrongdoing or liability. The Justice Department’s evidence was strong; undeniably, the Trumps engaged in racial discrimination. Also undeniably, the episode is fifty years old. Fifty years ago Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama opposed gay marriage. I stipulate that when a public figure’s last racially discriminatory act was a half century ago, the “racist” label cannot be sustained.

I also want to respectfully challenge Extradimensional Cephalopod, our esteemed missionary of effective and civil discourse with immovable ideologues who have adopted an unshakable belief and are inclined to disrespect anyone who attempts to dislodge it regardless of the evidence offered. I would like to read a non-fantasy formula for convincing a progressive shill that the first first line is the utter bias and counter-factual smear that it is.

He/She/It has been especially smug of late with the now familiar “Oh, you poor dim Earthlings, if only you could learn the skills I bring you, the talking past each other that has resulted in such bitterness and enmity in our political disputes would be no more!” I am reacting particularly to our recent debate on this thread, which contained a reference to my post seeking the most ethical way to treat a neighbor who tells me she cuts off anyone who doesn’t sufficiently oppose Donald Trump and support the Democratic Party.

Update: I invited her to dine out with me for Thanksgiving, since my family is dead or will be elsewhere, and she is estranged from hers. She was thrilled. We will not talk politics.

Here is Gamereg’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Scary Trump-Deranged/Wokified Facebook Friend Update”…

***

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As Mediaite Edges Ever Closer To The Ethics Alarms Blacklist…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

There’s no excuse for this. There is a reason for it, however: Mediaite knows it can get away with this smear because the Miller Deranged don’t care about facts, just that all males accused of a sex crime must be considered guilty even decades after they have been exonerated. The good, virtuous, woke response in 2006 to the false charges made against the Duke students was to condemn the lacrosse players while presuming the alleged victim was a pure as the driven snow and as honest as Diogenes.

X Readers had to add the context Mediaite deliberately omitted to assist in the stampede to demonize Miller (I guess I should say “further demonize Miller.”) He was defending the presumption of innocence (which Nancy Grace seldom observed), not defending rape, and the accused students were indeed innocent, as their accuser eventually admitted that she lied.

The Democrats’ “Coordinated Messaging Machine”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

CNN contributor and smug progressive propagandist Van Jones claimed to know the secret of how Democrats achieved their strong (but absurdly hyped) showing last Tuesday. “Now it can be told,” Jones said, as if he were about to reveal who the second shooter was on the grassy knoll.

“How did we win the narrative on affordability? Was it just these nice little Democrats out there running for office and going to — No. The Republicans never figured out what we were doing. There’s something called the American Accountability Network. Tens of thousands of online humans — not bots — coordinated to make the affordability message a winning message online.32.5 million people hit on Instagram every day, 88.8 million hit on Twitter, X every single day. And 185 million hits on Facebook every single day. And they never figured it out. The Republicans could not understand. It wasn’t bots, it was actual human beings. The most effective online organizing campaign … flew under the radar screen. Driving the kitchen table affordability message and tying that to Democrats on a positive and Republicans on a negative…So, it’s not just all the door knocking that was done which was amazing. It’s not just our amazing candidate quality. We had something called the American Accountability Network. Don’t get mad at me, I was given permission to reveal this.”

[“Amazing candidate quality…” Ugh. What a hack.]

Does this really come as a surprise to anyone? My Facebook friends and my progressive zombie acquaintances began chanting about high gas and grocery prices long ago, even though it didn’t make any sense, since the inflated prices were the hangover from Biden’s incompetent Presidency. To listen to them, it was all “tariffs,” because that was another repetitious talking point, though so far it looks like Trump’s tariffs were more successful than critics predicted. Let me translate what Jones was saying:

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Addendum To “Stop Making Me Defend President Trump’s Trolling!” [Dumb Typo Corrected…]

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Picking a particularly dumb hill to die on, one commenter already on thin metaphorical ice and two already banned (but not yet blocked) past commenters decided to insult me personally based on this post, in which I pointed out what should have been obvious to anyone not made stupid by bias and paying attention, that Trump’s social media post supposedly offering the vacant job of White House Press Secretary to Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White was an extravagant trolling exercise as well as a message that he was not going to be cowed by the results of the mid-terms last week.

At the same time, a more respectable commenter picked the day to argue, without evidence or logic, that I need to be less assertive in such posts, because nobody likes me, or something, and that I am not skilled at persuasion.

I realized that these comments indicated a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the purpose of Ethics Alarms, an error that has raised its hoary head before. I don’t spend about four uncompensated hours a day researching and writing this blog and responding to comments (271,000+ responses so far, the most of any blog still standing) to convince anyone of anything. I remain true to and devoted to the mission, which states,

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What Price Whimsy?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

The New York Times has a provocative article (the issue isn’t political—yet, but just wait a few minutes) about how giant silly roadside attractions like the Paul Bunyan featured prominently in “Fargo” or Tyra the Tyrannosaurus (above), an 86 feet tall T-Rex that looms over Drumheller in Alberta, Canada are increasingly expensive to maintain. I was surprised how many of these frivolous things there are: an estimated 10,000 of them worldwide, mostly in the United States, Canada and Australia. The bulk of the U.S.’s roadside novelties sprung up in the mid-20th century as Ike’s interstate highway system took hold, more people bought cars, and family road trips became a summer vacation staple.

But now the aging structures are facing extinction. Lucy the Elephant (above) in Margate City, N.J. (I’ve visited Lucy!) was built in 1881 and has been designated historic, so a recent makeover that cost $2.4 million was deemed appropriate. But Tyra is coming down in 2029. The world’s largest hockey stick in Duncan, British Columbia, was dismantled in 2024 after 36 years after the community decided there were more practical uses for the $1.5 million it would cost to replace the crumbling wooden structure.

I loved crazy silly things growing up; heck, I still do because I’ve never grown up. Then they were just awe-inspiring and fun; now they are cultural touch-points and a source of whimsy as well as reminders of more innocent and emotionally healthy times.

The recent advances of the far left in the U.S. have some hidden tendrils. Socialist and Communist countries don’t have giant beavers, squirrels, the world’s largest cowboy boots, Vikings, or the likes of Willie the Walleye. Too frivolous. Think of all the hungry children who could be fed, all the homeless who could be clothed…and so on…with the money it costs for construction and maintenance. There’s no practical argument against that position, except that the spirit of a nation is important too, just impossible to quantify. Whimsy, imagination, the pure joy of a child seeing something memorable—these have value too, don’t they?

Nonetheless, I can’t foresee whimsy surviving in a nation that believes in income distribution and clinically obese government. The issue raised by the Times is political, and nostalgia is considered inherently racist and reactionary by our rising (and indoctrinated) generations.

Signature Significance and Res Ipsa Loquitur For An Ethics Dunce: Prof. Scott Galloway

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Stay classy, you experts!

Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business, former board of member of Eddie Bauer, The New York Times Company, Gateway Computer, Urban Outfitters, UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and current a regent at the University of California, said in an interview that he once owned a Tesla, but sold it to express his disapproval of Elon Musk, first “taking a giant dump in the passenger seat.” Earlier, he has suggested that Musk be executed. Not only did he defecate in a car he was about to sell, but he isn’t even ashamed of it.

CNN’s token conservative Scott Jennings writes in reaction to Galloway’s revelation,

“So he sold a car to someone after placing his feces in the front seat and this is a very serious person that we need to take very seriously because of his very serious thoughts.”

Bingo. I wouldn’t hire someone who boasted about pooping a car to mow my lawn, and this jerk is sitting on a Board of Regents because he hates the right people.

I told you that I would be posting this a lot, and here it comes again:

Take note, you conservatives and Republicans who let the “Blue Wave” swamp the nation, for these are the execrable people you allowed to get power over your lives because you wanted to throw a tantrum about inflation.

Disgusting (But Not Atypical) Leftist Hate-Mongers Issue A Rare Level #11 Apology (“The Impossible Apology”)

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Not accepted.

Progressive podcasters Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan laughed uproariously at an joke about digging up the body of assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk in order to kill him again.

The vile hosts of the “I’ve Had It” podcast read an X post stating, “We’re digging up Charlie Kirk and doing it again” on the air following Democrats winning majorities in the House and Senate in the midterm elections. They thought it was so hilarious—and assumed their sick listeners would as well—that they engaged in unrestrained hilarity at the idea of desecrating the body of a murder victim whose sole “crime” was opposing radical leftist cant. They chose—poorly. So far five sponsors of the podcast have pulled their advertising, with Cash App., which had one of their ads read right before Welch and Sullivan’s self-reveal as hateful ghouls stating curtly:

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Stop Making Me Defend President Trump’s Trolling!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

No, President Trump did not really offer the job of White House Press Secretary to Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White. In one of the most hysterical outbreaks of fake news since it became the Axis media’s norm to undermine the President they all hate, that was still the headline in almost every news platform.

“I am pleased to announce that the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Trump ended the post, “Dana, please take the job!”

It should be obvious what the President is doing, especially after a decade of watching his poor impulse control in action. He’s sending a message to the gloating press corps that Tuesday’s propaganda- and ignorance-fueled triumph by Democrats, socialists, Muslims and communists is not going to temper his passion to make America great again as he interprets that goal. His joke sends the message, “I ain’t down yet!’ as a teenaged Molly Brown sings to her bullying bothers in the opening number of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”It is the same message that appointing Stephen Miller as his new Chief of Staff was intended to convey but arising from the President’s whimsical side, which the Trump Deranged have always denied that he has despite too much evidence to list.

He’s trolling, in short. Naturally White played along with his friend’s gag, saying he turned the offer down. It’s not hard to figure out how Trump got the idea for his practical joke: Dana W. White served as the Chief Spokesperson for the Department of Defense during the first Trump administration and the name probably came up among possible replacements for Karoline Leavitt. Trump may have said, after Tuesday’s wipe-out, “Heh, maybe we need to appoint that other Dana White to that job now!” This got the usual mandatory chuckles and cheers from his chorus of yes-persons, and this was the result. (Cont.)

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