The Internet

I Guess, This Being An Ethics Blog, I Have To Post On “Coldplaygate.”

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Social media has gone bonkers since last Wednesday night, when Andy Byron, the married CEO of New York-based software development company Astronomer, was caught by a “Kiss-cam” cuddling Kristin Cabot, the company’s head of human resources, on the Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert at Gillette stadium in Foxborough, Mass. When the two realized they were on camera, they went out of their way to look as guilty as possible, pulling apart, with her turning her back on the camera and him ducking out of view.

Morons. When you are caught beyond escaping, life competence dictates that you must have the presence of mind to maintain whatever shred of dignity you may have left. (Practice helps.) The couple’s futile efforts at a cover-up prompted Coldplay front man Chris Martin to say from the stage: “Either they’re having an affair or they’re very shy.”

Then the clip gained millions of hits on X, TikTok and Instagram, so it was easy to identify the illicit lovers. Astronomer announced that it had put Byron on leave, saying, “Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability.” Over the weekend, Byron resigned.

The incident is an instant classic, which means people will remember it longer than the usual day-and-a-half. The Philadelphia Phillies made fun of the scandal by screening a video on the Jumbotron during Friday night’s game showing the team’s mascot Phillie Phanatic in an embrace with a fuzzy green companion. Commemorative merchandise, such as a sweatshirt bearing the legend “I TOOK MY SIDEPIECE TO THE COLDPLAY CONCERT AND IT RUINED MY LIFE” can be purchased online.

Ethics notes…

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Off With Their Heads! The Unsustainable Echo Chamber of Bluesky

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Guest Column by A M Golden

[From your host: I held this excellent guest column submission for about a week, waiting for a propitious time to post it. JD Vance’s adventure on the platform, which I discussed here, was exactly the context I was waiting for. And it gives me an0ther chance to feature Bing….JM]

Anyone who doubts the uniqueness of the American Revolution need only to look to France several years later when revolutionaries stormed the Bastille and set up a Republic.  As revolutions were wont to do, those who replaced the guys in charge eventually demanded that everyone follow their ideas in lockstep.  Those who did not were accused of lacking sufficient revolutionary fervor and risked literally losing their heads.  The self-righteous Jacobins who forced this pure ideology eventually devoured themselves as, again, revolutionaries are wont to do, until the head Jacobin, Robespierre, eventually lost his own head and disenchantment led to the installation of Napoleon as Top Dog.

That should have happened in the United States, too.  Despite the passions of the Federalists and the Jeffersonian anti-Federalists, though some nasty words were printed and spoken aloud, no one was murdered for his lack of purity (unless you count Alexander Hamilton, which I don’t because that was less an ideological battle than a personal grudge).

Ever since talented-but-socially-awkward Elon Musk bought Twitter, turned it into X and antagonized all those people who bought his so-called climate-friendly vehicles, those same Tesla owners have flocked to every other faddish social media that promises 24/7 Trump/Musk hate in addition to freedom from having to be exposed to the opinions of those who disagree with them.

It was one of our illustrious commentators here (I do not remember which one.  I apologize.  It’s been three years and I’ve slept since then) who suggested that many of the Hollywood types would realize their mistake when they exchange 80,000 followers for 80.  That person was right.

I have belonged to Facebook for years.  I’ve tried Instagram but find it unwieldy and boring.  I couldn’t help it, however, when one of my favorite performers made the Grand Announcement that he was headed over to the new Post.News in 2022, which promised conversations “moderated for civility”.  It took ten days to get me onboarded and I found the place to be overwhelmingly progressive….and small. 

Don’t get me wrong, there was a huge influx of members.  Then nothing.  Some of them even proposed that members try to make a positive platform there by building a community not based on complaining about the platform they’d just left.  I heavily curated what I followed and then began contributing content on a daily basis: I recommended books on history that I’d read myself.  I amassed over 30 followers over the next 18 months; the favorite performer barely broke 100.

Ultimately, though, it was not a sustainable platform. It folded.  Once again, members were looking for places to hide from the world, including Favorite Performer, and were pulled into Bluesky.  This time, I didn’t take the plunge.

Now, it appears that Bluesky has reached its ideological saturation point.  This week, Megan McArdle wrote this entry in the Washington Post: Bluesky’s decline stems from never hearing from other side .

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The Proud Illegal Immigrant Problem

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

I almost made this an Ethics Quiz, but I ultimately decided that I know the correct answer. The right course of action is clear. Derek Guy, above, and all long-time illegal immigrants who come forward to say, “I’m illegal and I’m proud” are ficks. And their candor should place them at the top of the deportation list.

I pay no attention to fashion, fashion mavens, and fashion world news, and I don’t have a lot of respect for those who do. So I was blissfully unaware of Derek Guy’s existence [“Derek Guy, also known as Menswear Guy, who is well-known on on X for his men’s fashion tips and analysis…”] and that he has been thrilling the Trump Deranged for his mockery of J.D. Vance’s and the President’s attire. Nevertheless, the completely trivial celebrity posted this screed on Twitter/X that has “gone viral,” as they say…Don’t worry, it ends eventually:

Well.

The thing is full of every rationalization, straw man, appeal to emotion and unethical spin that you and I have ever seen regarding open borders and illegal immigration. In no particular order…

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Ethics Quiz: Trump’s Banners

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

This isn’t the quiz question, but are we entering Julie Principle territory here? Should I keep flagging this very Trumpian conduct as ethically dubious, or just resign myself to “fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Trump’s gonna troll ’cause he likes to, that’s why”?

Those banners are currently hanging at the Department of Agriculture building in Washington, D.C. Naturally, my Trump-Deranged Facebook friends (and certainly the rest of that zombie herd that I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting), is triggered. “This is SHOCKING,” writes one of the TDS inflicted (whose posts I have noted before). “Authoritarian craziness is now on full display. What happened to DOGE? We now have Soviet style banners. POTUS is a very ill man.” A reply asserts, “Unfortunately, the ‘uneducated’ would never see this.”

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BREAKING! Verizon Sucks!

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

For the nearly four days Verizon’s incompetence cost me, including two angry clients, one lost assignment that would have earned me at least $200, a missed bill payment that resulted in a penalty of 22 bucks, and over four hours wasted on phone calls and technicians, the company just texted me what its penance would be. Here’s the full text:

“Due to a service outage, we’ve issued a credit of $8.61 that will appear soon in your account.”

Anticipating this, yesterday I tried to get through to a human being in Customer Service to register my objections to both the Verizon service I received (and didn’t receive) over those four days, and my conclusion that the company owed me a lot more than just compensation for the time the internet and phone weren’t working. First I was trapped in a loop trying to sell me various products and services offered by Verizon’s “partners.” Next I reached an AI who mimicked a human being, even saying “um” here and there, who wouldn’t stop talking even when I did my best Michael Palin impression from the immortal “Travel Agent Sketch” (his screaming “SHUT UP!” begins at around the four minute mark)….

On my third try, I was told that a live representative would pick up after an estimated “13 minute” wait; the wait time was really 44 minutes. Then I was told that I had reached the repair department, but I was promised that I would be forwarded to a live person “who can help you” without dealing with recordings and AI liars. After a half hour of the most horrible elevator music since Montovani played “The Pina Colada Song,” I hung up.

I can’t even buy a good straight-edge razor to go on my planned “Sweeney Todd” rampage for $8.61.”

Yes, My Conservative Facebook Friends Can Be Just As Irrational As the Progressives…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

A usually wise and measured conservative Facebook friend posted with approval a tweet by conservative pundit Matt Walsh, complaining about the father of a 15-year-old school shooter who killed two people and injured six others being charged after the tragedy. The killings (the girl shot herself as well, and died) occurred at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, in December.

“Let’s just be honest about the pattern here,” Walsh wrote. “This is the third time that a parent has been charged for violence committed by their child. In every case, the parent has been white. There is violence committed in the streets of every major city every single day. You could blame the crappy, neglectful parents in literally all of those cases. And yet none of them have ever been charged.”

Wow, talk about the wrong hill to die on! Both of those other cases involved criminally negligent parents, and the father of the late shooter in Wisconsin may have been the worst of the three.

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Meet JoAnna St. Germain, the Face of Trump Derangement

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

JoAnna St. Germain, a public school teacher (for a bit longer)at Waterville High School in Waterville Maine, personifies what the decade-long hate, fear and anti-democracy campaign from “the resistance,” Democrats, and the mainstream media has inflicted on the soul of America. Once, presumably, she was a normal, rational human being like you. Now, she posts screeds like this on social media:

The Secret Service has the perfect opportunity, if they choose to step up and take it. You are the ones with power. Coordinate. Take out every single person who supports Trump’s illegal, immoral, unconstitutional acts. Look at the sycophants and give them what they’re asking for.
 
Every other country sees what’s happening and they are taking stands.
If you step up, we can avoid a civil war. I’m not talking about assassinating a president. A president is a person duly elected by the American people.
Tr*mp has shamelessly bragged openly about stealing the election. He is making plans to give himself a third term. I’m talking about Americans recognizing a fascist dictatorship and standing against it.
 
Secret Service, you are Americans.My beloved military, you are Americans.
We, the people, are counting on you.

Nice. Even with rampant madness oozing through social media and the op-ed pages every day, calling for the execution of the President of the United States and all of his supporters from someone not in already in restraints like this guy…

…is unusual, especially when the provocateur has been entrusted with molding young minds. A few hours later, the teacher wrote, “I have zero shame about what I’ve said. I’m not backtracking a single thing. I believe Trump and every sycophant he has surrounded himself with . . . needs to die,” adding that she posted “knowing I’d likely lose my job and benefits.” When her call for violence was reported in some media outlets, JoAnna “doubled down,” and quite arrogantly too, writing a week ago on her Facebook page:

Apparently, I have made the news. People are quite angry with me for stating openly that Trump and his cronies need to die. Gosh, I fear I may have “Trump Derangement Syndrome”!
 
I’m going to hold your hand when I say this, and I say it with my full chest:
Fuck fascism. Fuck a country that suppresses the media. Fuck a country that moves to weaken the education system in order to produce weak-minded people who will follow orders. Fuck a country that sends innocent women and men to die thinking they’re defending democracy when they’re really defending the rights of corporations to fuck over the very people lining their pockets.
 
If you’re mad at this post, knowing that I just threw away a decade of experience teaching the truth, fully knowing that my superintendent will have to fire me? If you’re mad that I’m speaking truth to power?
 
Fuck you. I’ll still take a bullet to keep your child safe.

Niiiiice!

Later, as she had to know would happen, Waterville Public Schools Superintendent Peter Hallen emailed a statement to parents that said in part, “Please know that I have taken steps to ensure everyone’s safety and am, along with the appropriate authorities, actively investigating the incident.” St. Germain’s reaction:

Well all righty then!

Observations:

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Yecchh! Pooey! Instant Ethics Train Wreck In Minnesota…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Nothing but dunces, villains and fools in this tale….

1.Unethical catalyst: In Rochester, Minnesota, a state that has gone certifiably nuts, home of the George Floyd Freakout and a government headed by Knucklehead Tim Walz while voters send anti-Semitic Rep.”Fuck you!”Omar to Congress, a woman named Shiloh Hendrix was at the playground at Soldiers Field Park when she found a young black child looking through her 18-month-old son’s diaper bag. The kid is a nascent thief and needs more attentive parenting.

2. First identifiable unethical adult: Hendrix, who upon discovering the invasion of her personal property called the child a “nigger.” That’s signature significance in 2025—indeed at least since the 19th Century. She’s a low-life racist, a blight on society, and deserves to be shunned and reviled. To Hell with her.

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President Trump’s Third Term Fantasy

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

We’re back in Julie Principle territory again, unfortunately: “Fish gotta swim, bird’s gotta fly, Trump’s gong to keep saying crazy stuff to make progressives cry…” This is a particularly annoying example. Just as the position of Ethics Alarms is that trusted professionals do not have the luxury of pulling April Fool’s Day hoaxes on the public, it is also unethical for Presidents of the United States to deliberately raise phony issues for public consumption.

The President began raising the possibility of a third term almost from the moment he was elected to his second. It is, of course, impossible. The Constitution forbids it quite unambiguously thanks to the 22nd Amendment, the eventual Congressional reaction to Franklin Roosevelt shattering the unwritten rule, set by our first President, that two elected terms is enough. Over the weekend, Trump said he was “not joking” about there being “methods” to circumvent the two-term limit. No, there really aren’t and never mind that: Trump is 78 years old, not exactly in peak physical condition, and would be 86 at the end of a third term. The real question is whether he can complete this one.

Trump was even sparking speculation about a fantasy race between him and Barack Obama in 2028 for an unconstitutional third term, and a depressing number of morons on social media are taking it seriously. Yes, Dana, that’s your cue…

Here’s what’s happening. I was pondering Trump’s nonsense, and concluded that there are three things going on here, only one of which is substantive:

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So Far, Flunking the Integrity Test of the “Signal Chat Ethics Train Wreck” [Part II]

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

In the interest of time—mine—I’m going to list the relevant developments and my observations as bullet points, with the full knowledge that I will be posting on this again, and probably soon. So here we go, into the wreckage…

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