Business & Commercial

Briefly Noted: The Dumbest Question “The Ethicist” Has Ever Chosen to Answer

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Here it is: “Can Male Authors Publish Books Under Female Names?”

Well, of course they can, but the real question is little better. “I’ve recently heard some sharp comments from friends about male authors publishing books under female names. The pseudonyms are sometimes gender-neutral, but in genres dominated by women, readers assume that these writers are women too,” blathers “Name Withheld.” ” I know there are historical examples of the inverse: female writers using male names or gender-neutral names that are assumed to be male. But are these equivalent? Whatever difficulty male authors may face in majority-female literary genres today cannot compare to women’s historical struggle to live a public life. Is it unethical for these male authors to present themselves this way?”

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An Unsolicited Letter From Ashley Madison…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Today this unwelcome turd turned up on my mailbox from a “Kerry Brad”…

Good morning!
What if I told you the typical Ashley Madison member isn’t a reckless playboy but a brown-haired engineer, a highly successful Virgo, and – more often than not – the eldest child in their family? New data from Ashley Madison, the discreet dating platform with more than 80+ million members worldwide, reveals a surprising reality about who’s engaging in non-monogamy – and it’s not who you might expect.

The numbers tell a fascinating story:

  • More than one-third (33%) of respondents say they’re happy in their marriages/relationships.
  • 70% of members stick to just one affair at a time, debunking the myth of serial cheaters, while only 2.7% have had four or more affairs simultaneously.
  • Women seek affairs earlier than men – 13% of women have been in their relationship for less than a year before looking elsewhere, compared to just 3% of men.
  • While men in engineering and trades make up a significant portion of members, women in sales, IT, and law enforcement also turn to affairs.
  • Virgos, Geminis, and Scorpios are among the most likely to stray.

This data challenges everything we think we know about who joins Ashley Madison and why. I’d love to connect you with Paul Keable, Chief Strategy Officer at Ashley Madison, who can dive deeper into the typical profile of an Ashley Madison member, what this reveals about modern relationships, and more. Let me know if this data would be a fit for an upcoming story. I look forward to hearing from you, either way!

The letter cam complete with a copy of the company’s member survey. Not familiar with Ashley Madison, you lucky stiff? Its website homepage used to welcome viewers (maybe it still does; I am not moved to check) thusly:

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Weekend Ethics Spring Bouquet

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I recently noticed that one of my Facebook friends of long-standing whom I respect greatly is now officially bonkers, thank to the Trump Derangement pandemic. I find this more than sad: it’s terrifying that a lifetime of critical thinking and rational, balanced analysis can be unmoored simply by having too many friends and associates who are ignorant hysterics and not realizing that the news media you frequent every day is mind poison.

Lawyers and ethicists are being hit especially hard; the fact that almost all of my theater associates are freaking out is less of a shock, for most of them have always been this way. My legal ethics specialist listserv is in the process of melting down over a few well-reasoned objections to the most of the opinions being offered residing more in the realm of progressive politics than legal ethics. But Trump is a threat to the rule of law! There wasn’t any concern whatsoever expressed on this same platform when Donald Trump was being targeted by Democratic prosecutors so that their party could continue to hold power. If Merrick Garland or Joe Biden were even mentioned there in four years, I must have missed it. I was amused to see one of the loyal “non-partisan,””objective” ethicists defend the group’s obsession with Trump by quoting the “Man for All Seasons” speech about giving the Devil the benefit of the law (Guess who the Devil is!) as another resorted to the hoary “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out..” quote from Martin Niemöller. Trump’s not the Devil, he’s Hitler! My friend, a retired partner in big D.C. law firm, is just about as impossible to argue with now as this idiot. Watching him devolve is like seeing a zombie movie…

Meanwhile,

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On Musk Derangement Syndrome

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Perhaps the clearest sign that a formerly mentally competent Facebook friend has gone over the rainbow to Progressive Wacko Land is if they write nasty things about Elon Musk.

Trump Derangement I can understand. Oh, at this point it’s juvenile and embarrassing to the sufferer as well as his or her family, but I can understand it. I easily could be a victim myself: “There but for the grace of God go I!” [a quote attributed to John Bradford (1510–1555) who was imprisoned in the Tower of London for crimes against Queen Mary I and burned at the stake.]

After all, from 2011 to 2016 I wrote dozens of Ethics Alarms posts about how awful Donald Trump was and a fair amount of very critical posts since then. Trump’s personality, rhetoric and conduct are so far removed from the nation’s historical template for its Presidents that the gag reflex is completely understandable, though if his style causes an individual to fail to appreciate what he has done (or tried to do) that is courageous, necessary and important (what we call “substance”), then bias has indeed made that individual stupid.

Elon Musk, however, is an unquestionable Ethics Hero. He will eventually get honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and could justifiably get the honor tomorrow. Musk’s purchase of Twitter rescued civic discourse from the slowly tightening grip of progressive/Democratic Party control over what the public could read, learn about, consider and write. It is very likely that without the platform’s transformation to “X,” the Democrats would have held on to the Presidency despite their Politburo-like management of it under Joe Biden. That unselfish and patriotic purchase alone should guarantee appreciation even from those who disagree with Musk politically; that it doesn’t reveals ominous aspect of the Left’s priorities and values.

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The Last “Snow White” Post (I Promise)

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Why is the Cognitive Dissonance Scale the graphic I chose for the final word on Disney’s “live-action” remake of Walt’s biggest and most important hit, 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”? (For some perspective, realize that we have the same relationship on the timeline to that film that it had to the Presidency of Millard Fillmore.) It is clear that this cultural ethics train wreck, which EA has been dutifully covering (here, here, here, here here, and here), is now stuck inextricably in cognitive dissonance territory. For most viewers, what they think about the movie will be influenced far more by their biases and what they associate with the movie than the movie itself.

That’s how the scale works, as I keep explaining ad nauseam. If Disney is generally a plus-5 on a ticket-buyer’s scale (once upon a time, Disney would have been a plus-10 or higher on everyone’s scale) and the movie in a vacuum would be at “Meh”-level Zero, Disney would pull the film into positive territory. If Disney is in negative territory already for a different viewer, the film begins with an anchor chained to its metaphorical ankles.

Thus it is hardly surprising to see this as the early returns on the film (which doesn’t officially open in theaters until tomorrow):

Now that’s polarization!

What’s going on here? Well, a lot…

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An Unethical Cascade…Thanks, Metropolis!

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

The photo above carries the caption: “Metropolis parking utilizing AI to create drive in drive out parking without the need for a ticket and validation. This lot is at 236 S. Los Angeles in Little Tokyo in Downtown Los Angeles.” Here’s my caption: “Metropolis parking can bite me.”

And did, come to think of it.

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The 2024 Gallup “Americans’ Ratings of Honesty and Ethics of Professions”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I write a post about this annual Gallup survey every year, but my observations apart from the obvious have been increasingly redundant. This will be reflected in my comments this year as well, largely because little has changed significantly since 2023. Gallup writes in its introduction,

Gallup began measuring public trust in various professions in 1976, initially covering 14 jobs. Over the years, the list has changed, with some occupations added and others removed. Since 1999, 11 professions have been tracked annually, while others have been included periodically.

The average very high/high ethics rating of the core 11 professions has decreased from routinely 40% or higher in the early 2000s to closer to 35% during most of the 2010s. It rose slightly in 2020, to a seven-year high of 38%, reflecting enhanced public trust in healthcare workers and teachers during the pandemic. Thereafter, the average declined each year through 2023, when it reached 30%, and it held there in 2024. This mirrors the long-term decline in Americans’ confidence in U.S. institutions.

There is mordant humor in that text: the enhanced public trust in healthcare workers and teachers was wildly misplaced. The healthcare profession was inept and dishonest during the pandemic, and the teachers unions crashed the economy by lobbying to keep the schools closed for their own interests. It also reflects the trend I’ve see in these surveys for years: the public tends to trust occupations they have to trust, explaining why pharmacists and nurses have always been among the most trusted professions.

One reason the trust freefall has slowed, I believe, is that so many professions are trusted so little now that there isn’t much farther for them to fall. Only 8% of those surveyed trust Congress strongly: I’d assume that just the number of apathetic ignoramuses in the population would account for that number. It will be interesting to see if this clown show…

…drives trust in Congress lower still in the 2025 survey. And who knows what horrors are to come?

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Three Word Summary of “Working at Anheuser-Busch, I Saw What Went Wrong With the D.E.I. Movement”: “It was D.E.I.”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“The principles that built great American companies are simple: Hire the best people, serve your customers well and let merit and financial results determine success. While expanding opportunity and making employees feel welcome are worthy goals, how D.E.I. policies were carried out often strayed from these foundational principles and might have even created other forms of discrimination.”

It might have even created other forms of discrimination! Gee, ya think?

In a jaw-dropping example of the “Tell me something I don’t know” variety of journalism, the New York Times gives us “Working at Anheuser-Busch, I Saw What Went Wrong With the D.E.I. Movement” (Gift link!). Anson Frericks tells us that water is wet with the solemnity of a doctor announcing a cancer diagnosis. He was shocked–shocked!—when his company, having announced its commitment to “DEI,” turned down a beneficial distribution arrangement with another company because “being associated with Black Rifle was too politically provocative, especially in progressive circles.” This, in 2022, two years after the beginning of the George Floyd Freakout, made Anson realize that his employers were more interested in virtue-signalling to the Looney Left than selling beer.

What did he think “diversity, equity and inclusion” was going to mean?

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The Merle Oberon Story, or “Sometimes Those ‘Historic’ Oscar Nominations Aren’t So Historic After All” [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

In 1936, Merle Oberon, best known today because of her co-starring role opposite Laurence Olivier in “Wuthering Heights,” became the first Asian actress to get an Academy Award nomination, for her role in “The Dark Angel.” But in 2023, Michelle Yeoh was widely hailed as the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences’ first Asian Best Actress winner. That is because Oberon hid her ethnicity from journalists and the public for her entire career in order to have a career at all. It worked: in addition to getting the much-sought role of Kathy in “Wuthering Heights,” Oberon played Anne Boleyn (in the Charles Laughton classic, “The Private Life of Henry VIII”) at a time when non-traditional casting was unheard of.

Oberon died of a stroke in 1979; it wasn’t until four years later that it was revealed that she had been born in Bombay, India, the daughter of an Indian woman who had been raped by a white man. Written before the secret was revealed, the Times obituary seems naive in retrospect: “A diminutive 5 feet 2 inches tall, Miss Oberon was of an almost exotic beauty, with perfect skin, dark hair and a slight slant to her eyes that was further accentuated by makeup.” Almost!

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Regarding the Washington Post’s New Opinion Page Policy…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Do you understand what this means? I don’t.

Since a lot of writers work for Jeff, I would have suggested that he have one of them draft that statement with his oversight. Presumably he means that the Post will no longer publish op-eds like this…

…but he could have just as easily written that the Post will no longer give a platform to Trump Deranged nutballs like Jennifer Rubin, who had already quit anyway. My best analysis is that Bezos has just officially said that the Washington Post is leaving the Axis, and will no longer be a reliable ally and propaganda organ of the Far Left and the Democratic Party, which now consistently advocates that the U.S. become a European-style nanny state and that personal liberties be pared back, especially those enshrined in the First and Second Amendments. If that’s the idea, it is an admirable goal, though I think it is far too late for the Post to change course, and that the 95% Democrat city of D.C. is the worst possible place to try.

It is fun to see and hear the Angry Left freak out over the announcement. Here is one of the Post’s most unethical propagandists, the eloquent Phillip Bump:

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