Comment Of The Day: “Keep Talking And Tweeting, Sam: Eventually Almost Everybody Will Figure Out That You’re Ridiculous…Won’t They?”

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

I wasn’t able to get three Extradimensional Cephalopod Comments of the Day up yesterday as I said I was trying to do. Sorry. This is the intended #2: EC’s excellent outline of how to have a rational discussion with someone who is gratuitously calling people and groups he or she disagrees with “fascists.”

I strongly suspect that most people one would have this conversation with are too far over the metaphorical moon to respond in an encouraging manner, but the theory is sound, and as many have said in many ways, you never know unless you try.

Here is Extradimensional Cephalopod‘s Comment of the Day on the post, “Keep Talking And Tweeting, Sam: Eventually Almost Everybody Will Figure Out That You’re Ridiculous…Won’t They?”

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As one of the tiny percentage of competent philosophers on this planet, I recommend that we start asking people to explain what fascism means to them–after putting them in a calm frame of mind, that is. It’s part of the deconstruction method: 1) make them comfortable; 2) make them think; 3) make them choose. In this case, we don’t have to make them choose. We can just gather information.

Example:

Step 1: Make them comfortable. Continue reading →

Now THIS Is An Unethical Movie Review!

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

True, it comes to us from The Daily Kos, so it shouldn’t be news. That far, far Left site jumped the ethics shark so long ago, the shark was a Megalodon, and the Julie Principle was devised for such situations. The Daily Kos is dishonest, biased, and believes in stimulating its loyal progressive-wacko readership by any means necessary, so why is Ethics Alarms pointing out that it is again doing what it does and can be relied upon to do, without shame or regret?

Just this: unethical film, stage, and book reviews are a passion of mine, and I’ve never seen one this bad.

The headline at the Kos is “Movie review: ‘My Son Hunter’ is a soft-porn conspiracy flick for weird conservative incels.”

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Be Proud, Mainstream Media And Health “Experts”! This Is Your Doing…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

That is poor Vanessa Sun above, an obviously intelligent young woman (even though she does include her pronouns in her social media profiles) who has been turned into a mad phobic by years of pandemic hysteria, political manipulation and fearmongering. She writes on Twitter, “The universities said we are doing the personal responsibility approach so now I will be lugging this large air purifier to my classes 2x a week.”

Vanessa is an MIT geochemistry PhD student, and has been reduced to this.

Where is the accountability for turning millions of U.S. citizens into whatever this is?

Who ARE These People And Why Don’t I Recognize Them?

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Well, this is profoundly depressing.

I work hard at keeping current on all aspects of the culture, including the popular culture. I believe, and have written here frequently, that cultural illiteracy is a crippling problem in a democracy, and that citizens have an ethical obligation to avoid it by proactively informing themselves. I also agree with the thesis of E.D. Hirsch, who posited in his best-seller “Cultural Literacy” that the generations becoming estranged and unable to communicate with each other was a formula for societal disaster.

There has been an explosion of the use of a cheap joke at the expense of rising generations in TV and movie dramas: an older character will use a cultural reference to John Wayne, the Beatles, a Rockefeller or someone similarly significant, and a younger character, usually 20-ish, will reply, “Who’s that?” I managed never to be that kid, even as a preteen. The reverse gag is also common: a teen will mention Taylor Swift at the dinner table and a clueless parent will reply, “Oh, is that one of your new friends in school, dear?” I vowed when my son arrived never to be that boob either.

And yet today I ran one of my periodic spot checks on my pop culture literacy, and flunked. Perusing the stories in WeSmirch, a celebrity gossip aggregator, I found the names of 26 current celebrities, and endeavored to identify them (without cheating, of course). Here they are:

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Ethics Quiz: A.I. Cheating In The Art Competition?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Once again, Artificial Intelligence raises its ugly virtual head.

The Colorado State Fair’s annual art competition rewards artistic excellence prizes in painting, quilting, and sculpture, with several sub-categories in each. Jason M. Allen got his blue ribbon with the artwork above, which he created it using Midjourney, a program that turns lines of text into graphics. His “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” won the blue ribbon in the fair’s contest for emerging digital artists.

He’s being called a cheater. Just this year, new artificial intelligence tools have become available that make it possible for anyone to create complex abstract or realistic artworks by simply by typing words into a text box. The competition wasn’t paying attention, and in the era of rapidly moving technology, that’s always dangerous. Nothing in the rules prohibited entering a “painting” that was made using AI. Continue reading →

Sunday Ethics Warm-Up: “Soul Of The Nation” Hangover Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Hey…is that a rising sun or a setting sun? Ben Franklin is asking…

On this date in 1886, the legendary Apache leader Geronimo finally surrendered to U.S. government troops. I was thinking about Geronimo last night as I watched “Hot Shots, Part Deux” (the first one is much, much better), by the “Airplane!” guys. In one of the better gags in the film, a special ops team is parachuting into Iraq. Two soldiers shout “Geronimo!” and jump out of the plane, then Geronimo, in full Native American regalia, jumps out shouting “ME!” I found myself wondering if any film maker today would dare to put that into a movie. Isn’t that sad?

In related news, Fox pundit-comic Greg Gutfield is beating all the cookie-cutter all-progressive pandering all-the-time late night comics in the ratings. Imagine: he makes fun of both parties and their supporters! What a ground-breaking concept! He does have a great group of writers, I hear—Mark Twain, Will Rogers, H.L. Mencken, Mort Sahl, Stan Freeberg, Tom Lehrer…

1. Oh, let’s start with the post-Biden Reichstag speech. (My favorite meme inspired by this debacle : that already iconic photo of Biden with his fists raised against the blood-red background with the legend: “It was better in the original German.)

  • Last night, Trump called Biden “the enemy of the people” at his rally. Close one: I actually wrote that description of Biden is a post yesterday, and decided that it was too Trumpy. Not that Trump was wrong…he was also correct to call the mainstream news media “the enemy of the people,” and they are substantially responsible for inflicting Biden on the nation. Their lapdog reaction to the speech is also evidence.
  • Ann Althouse has been in rare form in her blogging about the speech. A liberal Democrat by inclination and belief, she was obviously genuinely offended and angered by it. Apparently progressive historian (well, they are almost all progressives now) Jon Meachum (“American Lion,” which I read and liked very much) had input into the rant, which Politico called the “Democracy speech.” Althouse: “Democracy speech”? Is that what they want it called? The speech where he demonized half of American voters?…Ugh! Warning us about our fellow citizens. Accusing us of “assault.” Claiming to represent “democracy”….it was horrible.” Here, writing about Trump’s rally, she quotes the Times today—“The former president described Mr. Biden’s address as ‘the most vicious, hateful, and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president.’—and comments, “I don’t think the NYT wants us to think Trump is right about that, but I think he is.”

Of course he is. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Labor Day Weekend Ethics Warm-Up, 9/2/2022: Which Are The Pod People And Which Are The Fascists?” [Item #4]

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Extradimensional Cephalopod might break an Ethics Alarms record today with three COTDs—I’m not sure yet: stay tuned. This one the earliest of the three, includes his cogent analysis of ranked choice voting systems, which I am on record as hating. As I have learned more about the Democrats donating to the nuttier Trump-endorsed Republicans in state primary contests, my hatred is even more entrenched. The more opportunities a system creates to game it, the less trustworthy it is. In my view, ranked choice voting asks the voter to try to game the system. Count me out.

Here is EC’s Comment of the Day on the Alaska special election item in “Labor Day Weekend Ethics Warm-Up, 9/2/2022: Which Are The Pod People And Which Are The Fascists?”

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At first I took issue with your characterization of the Alaska election, on the basis that ranked choice voting would have removed the spoiler effect. However, I realized that’s not quite true.

Under first-past-the-post voting, if 60% of voters preferred the Republican party but were evenly split across two Republican candidates, then the Democratic candidate would have won with a 40% plurality.

In the same scenario but with ranked choice voting, one of the Republicans would have been eliminated and their votes would have gone to the other Republican candidate, who would have won. In that situation a Republican wins, just like in the FPTP scenario, but also the Republican voters get to vote on which Republican wins without risking their party losing. That is, if they all have a Republican as their second choice.

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Ethics Hero: Criminal Defense Lawyer/Blogger Scott Greenfield

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Scott Greenfield’s post yesterday on his blog Simple Justice was fortuitous, coming as it did shortly after my musings (item #2) about a trusted and respected legal ethics colleague whose ugly past ethical breach I only recently learned about. Greenfield isn’t quite discussing the same issue—my dilemma involves trusting someone’s judgment and integrity, his involves pure friendship—but his post is helpful nonetheless, and admirable.

In fact, it reminds me of my father.

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Keep Talking And Tweeting, Sam: Eventually Almost Everybody Will Figure Out That You’re Ridiculous…Won’t They?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Biased, Trump-Deranged and stupid is no way to be a philosopher, Sam.

Before last week I was happily unaware of the existence of inexplicably influential woke philosopher and “best-selling author” Sam Harris. Then, in rapid succession, he endorsed journalistic malpractice and “ends justify the means” tactics to manipulate a national election, declared that Osama bin Laden was the salt of the earth compared to Donald Trump, and now he’s unleashed the demented tweet above.

That might be the most outrageous of the three, which is saying something. What kind of logic is that? It’s super-projection on steroids, as far as I can determine. X does something offensive and unethical to attack Y, and the defense is, “Yeah, but what X did is what Y is really like! I just know it!”

Oh.

Good point.

It isn’t just making that crazy statement that is evidence of cognitive malfunction; it’s publishing it and assuming that people not similarly impaired won’t react by deciding the writer is a lunatic.

Harris is one of those pseudo celebrities who makes me wonder where I went wrong. Clearly, writing and saying trendy, woke-pandering nonsense is a better formula for success than honestly trying to do the hard work of clarifying and bolstering societal values.

 

 

Of COURSE Trump Having All Those Documents At Mar-A-Largo Was Unethical…Is Anyone Seriously Confused About That?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Well, maybe Donald Trump. But definitely not Ethics Alarms.

At the Washington Examiner, editor and columnist Quin Hillyer writes that…

Former President Donald Trump’s defenders in the matter of the Mar-a-Lago documents controversy are defending the indefensible. Forget the legalities: For the sake of (spurious) argument, let’s stipulate that somehow Trump can concoct some looking-glass version of a legal argument that justifies his “authority” to do with the documents as he did. The point is that even if it was technically legal, it was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Heck, I’ll go farther than that; this is the proverbial low-hanging fruit. Donald Trump doesn’t know what ethics is: never has, never will. He decides what is “right” according to some secret personal algorithm that changes daily so it can’t be stolen, or something. His lifting government documents and storing them at his home without authorization after he had left office is as indefensible as any time an ex-employee takes property from the workplace home. Funny, I didn’t think that was even worth writing about; I do try to avoid the obvious here as often as possible.

Continue reading →