Comment of the Day

Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz: The Rehabilitated Brain-Eating Cannibal”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I did not, when I decided that the saga of Tyree Smith justified an ethics quiz, foresee that the story neatly dovetailed into a larger theme covered extensively by ethics alarms of late, the untrustworthiness of “experts” and the danger of blindly accepting their pronouncements, influenced as they too often are by ideological biases and political agendas. Longtime commenter Michael R., however (3, 425 comments since October 26, 2012!) managed to connect the dots.

Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: The Rehabilitated Brain-Eating Cannibal”:

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This is why it is time to remove the monopolies these professional groups have on essential services. The psychiatrists and psychologists have a monopoly on confining people for mental illness and, in this case, releasing the criminally mentally ill. How many times have they failed in this? James Holmes (above), the 2012 Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooter, is a good case in point. He had been banned from seeking psychiatric help because he was deemed too dangerous, but the very establishment that deemed him too dangerous to be around THEM, refused to sign papers that would let the police involuntarily confine him. At least they successfully determined he was a danger to those around him, they just refused to help the general public. We have them pushing puberty blockers and surgical sterilization on children with no evidence this will help. In fact, the actual ailments they suffer from were probably caused by the very ‘experts’ that get to decide the ‘treatment’.

Let’s look at medicine next. The medical associations regulate themselves and are calling for ideological conformity in all physicians. Anyone who disagrees about COVID masks, vaccinations, DEI, affirmative action, etc can’t be a physician. Pharmacists can refuse to fill prescriptions if they don’t agree with the physician’s treatment, or diagnosis, or they think the person looks sketchy. Medicine is an essential service. We can’t have such groups dictating if we can get care or not.

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Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz: The National Cathedral’s New Windows”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

A lovely and thoughtful Comment of the Day by Sarah B. on the post, “Ethics Quiz: The National Cathedral’s New Windows”:

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I look at these windows and I am disappointed. Our culture has moved away from what should be presented everywhere: the true, good, and beautiful. Let us put these windows to the test.

Are these windows depicting what is true? Yes, things like this have happened. No one can argue on this. Are they depicting what is good? This is harder. The windows have the intent of being understood in several ways, some of them, NOT good. Finally beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that is true, but no one seriously thinks that the rose windows in Notre Dame are ugly. I certainly do no see much beauty in these windows. The signs are jarring and take up most of the space on the windows. The emphasis, therefore, is on signs and messages, not on beautiful pictures.

In addition, I look at this from the Catholic standpoint of stained glass typically showing multiple scenes of import or people to be admired. From that standpoint, I can come up with many better pictures for an attempt at a mostly apolitical set of windows. If one wants to tell the history of slavery even, I have some great ideas. I think our history has more important matters than that, but I’ll give the slavery a shot first. Of course, all of these will have to be simplified for the material of stained glass, but we have had Jesus feeding the multitudes on stained glass for centuries, not to mention all the other Bible stories. A true student of stained glass can simplify anything and do so meaningfully.

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Comment Of The Day: “How Can It Be Responsible To Trust America’s Teachers When Their Leader Posts This…?”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Curmie is one of the teachers Ethics Alarms is fortunate to have ready with commentary. I suppose my post was in his wheelhouse, in more ways than one. His multi-faceted Comment of the Day in response to “How Can It Be Responsible To Trust America’s Teachers When Their Leader Posts This…?” has already sparked some good back and forth, but I don’t want anyone to miss it, so here it is:

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There is a series of ethical questions here, going back decades.

We can start with the publication of the book to begin with. This was a diary, after all, something never intended to be made public. Is it ethical to take the explicitly confidential words and thoughts of someone else and broadcast them to the world? Yes, there’s an upside, even an enormous one, but there’s also a betrayal of trust. And does Anne’s death make it more appropriate to publish, or does it mean simply that she’s not able to exercise literally any control over her own thoughts and words?

And if you’re going to publish the diary, is it legitimate to censor parts of it rather than release the work in its entirety? It would be interesting to understand the rationale for that decision: salability? discretion? embarrassment? prudery?

We now move forward to the graphic version. It’s perfectly reasonable that it contains a translation of the entirety of the original text. I’ve never been a fan of “graphic” versions of anything, although I did enjoy some of the Classics Illustrated comic books when I was a kid. But different strokes for different folks. Assuming everything is/was above-board in terms of copyright, I see no objection to the publication.

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Comment Of The Day (2): “Observations On The Revived Claim That Google ‘Steered 6 Million Votes’ to Biden in 2020”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

For the second Comment of the Day on the controversial assertion that Google helped rig the 2020 election (a “completely baseless” claim, you understand), we turn to Curmie. “What?” you well may say. “Curmie has his own column in Ethics Alarms! What is this, the Curmie Show?” In the absence of what I consider a sufficient number rational, civil and well-articulated opinions on EA from the left side of the political and ideological spectrum, Curmie’s takes, often but not always dissenting from the main post, are not just welcome and appreciated but also treasured. I’m hoping that maybe the angry progressives, proto-trolls and one-note social justice warriors who visit here will read and learn from Curmie’s works. Then they wouldn’t have to get banned and then keep sneaking in quickly-trashed comments arguing that the mainstream media isn’t really biased, just to pick a wild hypothetical out of the air.

Besides, Curmie almost never has a typo…

You can read even more Curmie on his blog, here, where he cross-posts his EA contributions as well as thoughts on non-ethics topics. This is his Comment on the Day on “Observations On The Revived Claim That Google “Steered 6 Million Votes” to Biden in 2020”:

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I find this interesting for a variety of reasons.

First, there’s nothing new here. Epstein’s analysis came in the immediate aftermath of the ‘20 election. Reportage from then is all over (wait for it) Google. So why is it a stand-alone story now? I could understand it as background for a subsequent critique, but that doesn’t seem to be happening, at least not yet.

It’s also purely speculative. We’re not talking about changing people’s votes after the fact, or adding or subtracting votes directly. This is about changing voters’ perception of who is the better candidate prior to their voting, and there is no conceivable way of determining the extent to which Google’s alleged manipulation affected voters’ choices. We can speculate, but it starts getting really mushy when we start suggesting numbers. Of course, virtually every part of society is engulfed in a quantification fetish, so I suppose that part is understandable.

Even assuming the allegations have a foundation, we’re looking at a phenomenon that’s been played out innumerable times by media from every political perspective. The “everybody does it” excuse may be unethical, but the fact remains that yes, everybody does it, which makes this a little less newsworthy. I’ve often referenced the year I spent in England working on my MA. You knew that what you read in the Guardian was filtered through a liberal lens, and what you read in the Telegraph was through a conservative one. But you also knew that both papers maintained integrity. We can’t say the same for any outlet, left or right, in the US in the 2020s.

It’s also true that anecdotal evidence is often misleading. I have no doubt that Jack’s blog posts are “buried” by Google, but there are multiple possible reasons for that, including good old capitalistic amorality: somebody else paid them to move their site higher on the list.

I also tried a little experiment this morning. With Jack’s permission, I have also posted things I wrote for the “Curmie’s Conjectures” series here on my own blog, as well. So I copied the title of one of those essays and plugged it into Google. The post on Ethics Alarms came up #1. The one on Curmudgeon Central, with precisely the same title, didn’t appear at all. That’s hardly evidence that conservative perspectives are being silenced at the expense of liberal ones!

I wouldn’t take on faith an assertion by PJ Media that NBA centers tend to be tall, but Epstein is a far more complicated and therefore interesting individual. His training is in psychology rather than quantitative analysis or marketing. This doesn’t discredit his critique of Google, but if the right is going to grant him omniscience, I await their agreement with him in the area of his actual specialization: for example, his claims that bisexuality is the natural norm for humans and most people claim to be straight due to social pressure rather than their lived experience.

It’s perfectly possible to be really good at one thing and really awful at another. But if Epstein is brilliant, then he’s brilliant; if he’s a wackadoodle, then he’s a wackadoodle. ‘Tis a tangled web out there, whether or not anyone is practicing to deceive. (Apologies to Sir Walter Scott.)

Comment Of The Day (1): “Observations On The Revived Claim That Google ‘Steered 6 Million Votes’ to Biden in 2020”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The power of social media and Big Tech platforms to influence and even control public discourse, public opinion and the democratic process is among the unintended and unanticipated consequences of the internet revolution. It had not had anywhere near the focus on it from the government and the news media, and the public is disturbingly ignorant and apathetic regarding how their own autonomy and freedoms of thought and speech are being distorted—in part, because the beneficiaries of social media and Big Tech power want them to be ignorant and apathetic. The proverbial frog is boiling. Many frogs, in fact.

The post yesterday about a revival of the 2020 claim by a researcher that Google had “steered” 6 million votes to Joe Biden in the 2020 election generated several provocative comments. Here’s one of them (#2 is on the way): a Comment of the Day by Ryan Harkins on the post, “Observations On The Revived Claim That Google “Steered 6 Million Votes” to Biden in 2020”:

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All the way back in 2016, I was looking for some good white sheets on Alarm Rationalization, the methodology in accordance with ISA 18.2 by which process automation alarms are given priority and justification in control systems. The only words I used in the Google search were those two: “alarm” and “rationalization”. Ethics Alarms was the #2 hit on that search. That is how I found Ethics Alarms in the very first place.

I personally have seen the effects of Google favoring websites and search results that favor the narratives Google favors. This has occurred even on Google’s search engine for scholarly papers. Unless you are absolutely specific on the name of the paper, if it doesn’t fit Google’s preferences, the paper is buried pages down, if you can find it at all. And that is hugely problematic because I believe most people will not go more than a couple pages into a Google search. I know if I have to go that far, I need to stop and redo my query terms.

This is one more piece in the realm of fears and concerns that the conservatives in the nation possess. As a reminder, that list is as follows:

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Comment Of The Day: “That Bomb ‘Finger Gun’ Should Have Never Been Made At All: How Did We End Up With ‘Finger Gun 4’??”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I’m pretty sure EA has touched on the topic of anti-male student discrimination by teachers in grade school, but not recently and not often enough, because it is a serious cultural and societal problem. The Atlantic wrote about “The War Against Boys” in 2000 before it became a complete propaganda vehicle for radical wokism—I wonder if such an essay would get published today?

2000—let’s see, that was right around the time my wife and I started becoming aware of how normal little boys were being expected to act like good little girls in school, as our authority-resisting, intrepid and energetic son was being routinely abused by boy-hating teachers to such an extent that he was permanently alienated from formal education. The finger gun nonsense is symptomatic of the trend, and crella makes the connection in this, the Comment of the Day on the post, “That Bomb ‘Finger Gun’ Should Have Never Been Made At All: How Did We End Up With ‘Finger Gun 4’??”

Here it is….

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Comment Of The Day: “I Don’t Feel I Can Trust The Teachers,” Says A Colorado Parent. Gee, Lady, What Was Your First Clue?”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

In “Free Fall,” a novel by William Golding of “Lord of the Flies” fame, the narrator searches through his past to try to learn when he lost control of his life. I think about that relatively obscure novel, an odd addition to a college course reading list, frequently, but not in relation to my own life (which has either always been out of control or, depending on how you look at it, entirely within my control). I think about in relations to topics like what Here’s Johnny is writing about in his Comment of the Day.

When did teaching professionals lose control of their common sense, professional ethics and respect for parents? It isn’t just them, of course: politicians, lawyers, judges, academics, doctors, journalists, prosecutors, corporate executives and more have all jumped the metaphorical rails during the Great Stupid, and even before. What did it? What was the tipping point?

That’s a topic for another day, I suppose. Right now, this Comment of the Day is a concise, clear statement of what was once an uncontroversial truth. But what the hell happened???

With his Comment of the Day on the post, “I Don’t Feel I Can Trust The Teachers,” Says A Colorado Parent. Gee, Lady, What Was Your First Clue?,” Heeeeere’s Here’s Johnny!….

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I taught high school students for 20 years, a second career for me, and up through the time I retired from that 14 years ago, I never encountered this kind of thinking, that parents must be kept in the dark when it comes to a dramatic life-changing situation for their child. As OB asks [I paraphrase], ‘What the hell is it with gender ID anyway?’

It was true when I was teaching and it is true now that teachers have a special role in helping kids through those many difficult years of growing up. Are there things a kid might tell a teacher that they wouldn’t tell their parents? Yes, of course. Are there parents who would react in a way not in the best interests of the child? Yes, or course. And, responsible teachers have to know the difference, when to tell the kid that, ‘This is something I cannot keep in confidence; I have to discuss it with your parent(s)’, or, alternatively, “This is something that you will have to think about very seriously, maybe do some reading, maybe talk to a guidance counselor, maybe meet with the school psychologist’, and so on.

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Comment Of The Day: “How Can We ‘Trust The Science’ When It’s Distorted By Activist Scientists?” Audubon’s Bird Scam”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

On days like today, taken up by a frantic effort to prepare for an all-new seminar I’m teaching the usual unexpected crisis, plus wasting time dealing with a partisan troll whom I knew from the start was eventually going to get herself banned (and she did), I am especially grateful for thoughtful Comments of the Day in the inventory to keep the quality content coming. Such is Ryan Harkins’ comment on the post, “How Can We ‘Trust The Science’ When It’s Distorted By Activist Scientists?” —and here it is:

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I can certainly applaud the desire to mitigate damage to our native fauna that our cities create, but I would think there are several things that any advocacy group should keep in mind.

1. Sensationalism might spur the gullible, but it trashes credibility among anyone who bothers to investigate. Once you’ve lost credibility, it is an enormous uphill battle to regain trust.

2. In the same vein, even accurate numbers need to be placed in context. A billion birds a year sounds like a frighteningly high number. But it gives no context for how severe the problem is. It could be an imminent threat to all bird populations, or it could be a very minor issue. Killing a billion humans would be devastating to the human race. Killing a billion ants doesn’t even make a dent in their overall population. I Googled around and found that estimates put the bird population in the US and Canada at about 7.2 billion. However, that doesn’t mean that in 8 years, there would be no more birds. Yes, since 1970, that number has declined from over 10 billion, but that means 3 billion overall over 50 years. However, even that doesn’t provide the full context, because people need to understand the various causes that impacted bird population loss (which is largely due to loss of habitat), and they need to understand that killing a billion birds a year doesn’t lead to an overall decline of a billion birds in the total population. Instead, many of those birds will have died of predators, disease, old age, or other accidents, and their deaths often mean resources made available to the remaining birds who will then survive and reproduce. The real question is how quickly the overall bird population is declining, and whether that decline is accelerating or leveling off.

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Comment Of The Day: “In Maui, DEI Insanity Kills”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

The key question is: “Will any mainstream media pundit have the courage to make the points esteemed Ethics Alarms commenter Sarah B makes below, in her Comment of the Day to the post, “In Maui, DEI Insanity Kills”?

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So I’m going to say something that , at first glance, may sound pretty unethical here, but let me defend it first, before telling me that I’m going all in on Rationalizations. That being said, my TL,DR is “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I do think that it is fair to argue that, for the most part, the people of Lahaina had it coming. This fire was the rather predictable consequence of years of bad judgement and voting practices. First, the sugar cane farming dissolution into non-native dry grassland came because “we couldn’t possibly grow sugar cane there, it was too insensitive to the natives”. Then they didn’t make any reasonable plans to replace the farms with native plants that could handle both the wetter times and the drier times, but instead just let the farms grow over, which led to imported grass and other vegetation taking root off of spreading seeds. This worked out for a bit when things were wet, but these grasses are unable to handle the drier times. That led to a high fire hazard with a high burn interval.

Then they decided that they would go all in on the green energy to the degree that there was a huge governmental push (which often starts with the residents) for green production over safe electric lines, AFTER there was already substantial documentation that the power lines were likely to cause significant fires. Of course, the electric company is nowhere near blameless, but neither are the voters.

The idea that we now have DIE standing in the way of appropriate water being used to put out a fire, because we find that DIE is more important than lives and property (after all, we are founded on the notion of diversity, equity, and inclusion right, not that old fashioned life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), well, that is a conscious choice by the Hawaii electorate too.

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Comment Of The Day: “Painkiller”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Most of the comments on EA posts come from a solid base of experience and knowledge, but it is especially welcome when a commenter enlightens us on a subject he or she really knows well. Thus Tom P.’s observations on the pharmaceutical industry in light of the EA post on the Perdue Pharma/Sackler/ OxyContin horror as dramatized in “Painkiller” is a special pleasure. Here it is, a Comment of the Day:

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I apologize for the length of this post, but the topic is complicated and does not lend itself to sound bites. What follows is my experience and opinions based on working in the pharmaceutical industry and extensive reading on my part.

Full disclosure: I am a retired pharmaceutical company executive. During my career, I worked for various cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies. I held positions in R&D, manufacturing, quality control, and supply chain management. For most of my career, I was responsible for a major Pharma manufacturer’s anticancer and biologics global supply chains. As a point of reference, I have not seen “Dopesick” or “Painkiller”. I am familiar, however, with the travesty the Sacklers perpetrated on the sick and society. The best summary of their unethical and probably criminal behavior I have read is in an LA Times May 5, 2016, article: https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/

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