Ethics - Tumblr Posts
Who the fuck makes a “sitcom” about a nazi German pow camp what the fuck
Furthermore whoever removed the audio jack from phones should be grilled in front of congress. The fact that I need a dongle to listen to music on a modern telephone while 20 years ago I could have simply plugged a universally standardized cord into the audio jack everyone knew how to use is an anti-human move that should be punished.
"At this point LLMs-in-the-classroom apologists should be embarrassed," she tweeted in a thread that went viral last month. "Students aren't just using this stuff as a 'problem-solving tool' or whatever BS people spout, they're using it to forget how to talk."
Offered someone with a food allergy a homemade doughnut hole. They asked if it was made *without* the allergen.
I said yes. Like, dude, why would I offer you something we both know you can’t eat?
The fact that people actually try to offer other people foods that could make them horribly sick/kill them, just, astounds me. Like, it’s not hard to not feed someone something they don’t like, are allergic to, abstain from for religious reasons, etc. why would they do that? If someone doesn't want to eat something no matter the reason, don’t try and feed it to them
not cluttering up the reblogs on that one post but people on tumblr/twitter are so fucking weird about post covid syndrome.
namely there seems to be an assumption that if you get long covid, it's because you are an able bodied person who just "wasn't careful enough" and "went back to normal" and "hates disabled people." lots of posts celebrating that the assumed able bodied long covid patient "knows what it's. like now" and "woman who voted for the leopards eating people's faces party now has the leopards eating her face"
i shouldn't have to tell people that i was already immunocompromised or that i caught covid from a family member who went to a party. i shouldn't have to have my own behavior interrogated for like. times i took off my mask to take a sip of water, or times i hugged a friend. for people to determine whether i deserved multisystem inflammatory syndrome, to suffer lifelong multisystem organ and nerve damage, to lose the ability to walk unaided, to lose the career i'd spent years training for, to be 27 and have no idea what my future is going to look like or even how long of a future i have given everything. and you know what? even if a person who believed the CDC when they said that covid was over experienced this? they'd still deserve access to medical care and disability supports.
On Discomfort and Morality
My father finds gay men uncomfortable.
He's told me before that it's like a knee-jerk for him. Something he doesn't consciously control. He sees two men behaving romantically, and his body reacts with mild discomfort.
In the 1960s, when he was in high school, most of the boys in his form thought he was gay on the simple fact that he wasn't homophobic. He wouldn't participate in insulting queer people, he didn't care if someone was gay, he wouldn't have a problem hanging out with gay people. So people thought he was gay. That's how prevalent homophobia was in his formative years.
When I was 10, my dad told me very seriously that Holmes and Watson were gay. That it was obvious from the literature and the time period that they were meant to be a gay couple. When I was 14 and I came out to my parents as bi, when my mum was upset my dad ripped into her for it. Told her that she was being stupid, that it was my life to live how I wanted to and that she needed to get over herself.
My dad formed my views on censorship: that being that it was completely ridiculous and thoroughly evil. He didn't believe in censorship of any kind. If I asked him a question about sex, he answered it honestly. When I was 12 and I asked him about homosexuality, still young and uncertain, he told me that there was nothing wrong with it. That it was just how some people were. That there was likely an evolutionary reason for it. And that for some people it was uncomfortable on an instinctual level.
He taught me that just because you're uncomfortable with something, doesn't make it wrong. He also taught me that most people don't understand this.
I see a lot of this on the internet as of the last few years. The anti shipping movement, the terf movement, the anti ace movement. It all stems from discomfort that people have crossed wires into believing means wrong. Really every -ism and -phobia out there stems from this same fundamental aspect of humanity.
The next time you see something and you automatically think it's disgusting, or wrong, or immoral, I invite you to ask yourself: is this actually wrong or does this just make me uncomfortable?
So, on this front: In light of conversations I’ve been observing within the Tumblr Feedist community, I came to a hard decision. I’‘ve decided to remove all of my #belly envy reblogs, which included photos of guys with bellies which I had seen circulating that I wanted to reblog on my own page. Reading the discussions about consent and all that, I felt a bit called out for doing something that could be harmful to others, particularly the individuals depicted in those photos. I came to intuit that I was basically fetishizing them, a common practice in this community. I decided that I didn’t want to perpetuate that. So, I’ve deleted those posts from my Tumblr blog. I think perhaps a more appropriate way to express my admiration/appreciation of those posts would be a simple like. I wish there was a way to organize ones “Likes” on Tumblr (à la DeviantArt), but alas...
My Tumblr Likes
I’m trying to reblog posts that I’ve liked on Tumblr, but it’s becoming clear that that’s not going to happen, and if it does, it’ll be mad tedious. But I just wanna curate posts that I like and are relevant to the main topics of this Tumblr blog (food/recipes, male belly admiration, soft-core/casual gaining, weight gain story writing).
Looking at the posts that I’ve liked that had food/recipes, I’m noticing the trend that most of the ones that I’ve liked are baked goods, fast-food or carb-rich. Maybe that’s indicative of the likelihood that I’ll get fat easily, but what a delightful problem to have!
More people become good by practice than by nature.
-Democritus
Okay fine. I teach an ethics course and I just keep seeing all of this discourse on whether or not to vote in the upcoming US presidential election and I just wanted to lay a few things out here.
People who are saying they will abstain from voting because they see voting for anyone as supporting/endorsing genocide are operating from a Rights Theory perspective.
Basically, Rights Theory posits that you should never take any action that could violate someone else’s rights. EVER. The balance of benefits and harms does not matter. There is NOTHING that can justify taking away the right to, for example, life.
And I think that’s where these anti-voting folks are predominantly coming from. They see voting as endorsing/enabling genocide, full stop, and therefore it is morally indefensible EVEN IF IT WILL RESULT IN LESS OVERALL HARM.
People who are arguing that you SHOULD vote, and vote for Biden specifically, are operating from a Utilitarian Theory perspective.
Utilitarianism is all about balancing benefits and harms, and essentially prioritizing overall harm reduction. They recognize the harm the system is creating, but are willing to participate in the system because through doing so they can ensure that various harms are minimized--certainly not eliminated, but reduced, and, importantly, made easier to eliminate eventually.
Through utilitarianism, we can actually make people's fundamental rights EASIER to defend! But a lot of people are so caught up in the idea of moral purity, and Rights Theory, that they're willing to let their inaction erode people's rights because at least they aren't actively participating in the system. (they are still passively participating, however, and we can argue about inaction being a form of action, but I digress)
Point being, VOTE. Because of Utilitarianism, but also because, if you believe in the inalienability of people's fundamental rights? Voting will make it much easier to protect those in the long term, and that's frankly more important than you getting to feel exempt from an exploitative system you are nonetheless inherently a part of and complicit in.
Professional ethics shouldn't be forgotten, even if you are very proud of what academical position you have at the moment. Students came to you to listen you speak. To gain knowledge directly from you. Students believe you. They really do.
Nevertheless, students didn't come here to be hurt by your inadequate blaiming due to your current state of mind and health.
"Your a fucking idiot!!"
"Do you think that it started with Hamas on Oct. 7th?"
"Holy shit!!"
"Deliberately targeting civilians and taking old people and children hostage"
You sure about that?
"Finally, it explains why army spokesperson, Daniel Hagari found that a "substantial" number of the hostages taken by Hamas are military officers." -Wsw.org (Referenced later also!!)
'Jewish militias organized several bombing attacks against civilians and military Arab targets. On 12 December 1947, the Irgun placed a car bomb opposite the Damascus Gate, the main entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem, killing 20 people.[19] On 4 January 1948, the Lehi detonated a lorry bomb against the headquarters of the paramilitary al-Najjada located in Jaffa's Town Hall, killing 15 Arabs and injuring 80.[19][20]'
'The next day, Irgun members in a stolen police van rolled a barrel bomb[22] into a large group of civilians who were waiting for a bus by the Jaffa Gate, killing 20.[23][24][25][26] Another Irgun bomb went off in the Ramla market on 18 February, killing 7 residents and injuring 45.[27] On 28 February, the Palmach organised a bombing attack against a garage in Haifa, killing 30 people.[28]'
Yeah. Israel did bad things.
More than Hamas EVER did.
"As of 5 March 2024, over 31,000 people (30,228 Palestinian and 1,410 Israeli) have been reported as killed in the Israel–Hamas war, including 94 journalists (89 Palestinian, 2 Israeli and 3 Lebanese) and over 136 UNRWA aid workers."
Look at THE FUCKING NUMBERS
". As the World Socialist Web Site has repeatedly warned, ever since his government took office at the end of 2022, Netanyahu has mounted provocation after provocation against the Palestinians aimed at inciting retaliation, as then occurred on October 7. Al-Aqsa Flood provided the casus belli for a pre-planned campaign of mass murder and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians beginning with Gaza and then moving on to the West bank and including Israel’s two million Arab citizens."
"Many of the Israeli families of those killed, injured or taken hostage on October 7—reflecting a widely held view that Netanyahu is responsible for the disaster and did nothing to prevent it—have called for an independent and international investigation, which the government has refused. They have demanded answers to two basic questions:
What did Israel’s military-intelligence apparatus know in advance about what Hamas had planned?
And what actually happened over the weekend of October 7-8?"
"The authorities have not explained how Israel’s massive electronic border fence could have been breached with only rudimentary tools and without any sirens going off or army bases being alerted—with the result that the Middle East’s most sophisticated army took hours to arrive at the scene in a country no bigger than the US state of New Jersey."
"...and prevent the establishment of a mini-Palestinian state made up of the West Bank and Gaza."
"Just two days after the attack, on Monday October 9, Egypt exposed Netanyahu’s protestations that he had no foreknowledge. An Egyptian intelligence official told the Associated Press that Cairo had repeatedly warned the Israeli authorities that “something big” was being planned."
"Netanyahu has denied receiving any such warning, denouncing the story as “fake news.”
"Israel’s own soldiers also reportedly raised the alarm. But they were ignored and threatened."
"Put more bluntly, they wanted an atrocity and so stood down their defence and rescue services. Furthermore, the Biden administration’s full-throated support for Israel—including its deployment of warships to the region the very next day—indicates that October 7 was seized on by US military and intelligence officials to activate war plans prepared long in advance."
"Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons—some 1,500 of whom were being held under administrative detention, without charge or trial, for an indefinite period."
"..which just five days earlier had been extended by one day to October 7."
"According to reports in the Israeli press, the IDF, “caught off guard,” were slow to respond to the desperate cries for help."
"377 military and police personnel and 845 civilians, for a downwardly revised total of 1,222. The initial total included some of the dead Palestinians.)"
"Some 1,500 Palestinians were reportedly killed, with none apparently captured alive. "
"IDF Apache helicopters were used repeatedly in the next days, killing not only Palestinian fighters, but also Israeli army personnel and civilians. The helicopter strikes explain the significant damage to buildings, with many burnt out, and the large number of burnt-out cars, as well as several burned bodies, which the government had blamed on Palestinians armed with rifles and hand grenades—weapons that are incapable of causing that level or type of damage."
"In the event, however, IDF soldiers fired not just on the Palestinians, but also on (Israeli) hostages."
"while several Israelis have claimed they were fired upon by Israeli military and police."
"Hamas could not have planned to attack it, as the festival organisers switched to the site in the Western Negev desert only two days before"
"IDF helicopter opened fire on the attackers, hitting some people attending the festival. ABC News had earlier reported that an Israeli tank had headed to the site of the festival, while videos appeared to show IDF forces opening fire at Palestinian fighters through a crowd of unarmed civilians."
"The IDF acted as brutal and trigger-happy mass murderers of both Palestinians and Israelis.
Many Israeli captives were still alive on the Monday, two days after the events of October 7.
Hostages were not only killed in the crossfire that took place between the IDF and Palestinian militia on the Saturday. Many were killed as a consequence of the IDF’s deliberate decision to attack the kibbutz with tank shells and other heavy weaponry at close quarters in the full knowledge that hostages and their captors were there.
The IDF, not the Palestinians, caused many of the Israeli civilian deaths that were used to justify Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the deployment of US warships to the Middle East. How many can only be confirmed by releasing the results of autopsies that would show the type of bullets used."
"Far from protecting Israeli civilians, the Netanyahu government and the IDF used them as cannon fodder in pursuit of a policy of Israeli expansionism and Jewish Supremacy."
"Netanyahu has, in part, agreed to a temporary “operational pause” in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, in return for Hamas releasing 50 hostages, to try and contain mounting anger within Israel over his responsibility for October 7. But there is no reason to believe this will work."
"It is not a question, as Israel’s Zionist opposition to Netanyahu put it, of handing the reins to someone who is more militarily and politically “competent” to wage mass murder and ethnic cleansing, such as defence minister Gallant.
The demand must be for an immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinians, repudiating Zionism and advocating the creation of a multinational state with full equality for its Palestinian and Jewish citizens as part of a United Socialist States of the Middle East."
-https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/11/23/buna-n23.html
0:30 -0:50 : 'On Oct. 17th, 2023, more than 500 people were killed in an Israeli air strike at Al Alhi Arab Hospital in Gaza city. [..] Independent Investigators and weapons experts analyzed videos and ultimately concluded that the Israeli military was responsible for the strike.'
0:52 - 1:07: "The Israeli military, that said they would never do such a thing as bomb a hospital, bombed and raided Gaza's largest hospital, Al Shifa, alleging that Hamas was operating a command centre in tunnels below the complex. A claim that was repeatedly denied by both Hamas and hospital administration."
1:11 - 1:12: "The Israeli military also shared a *fabricated* 3-D animation to reveal what the tunnels apparently looked like."
1:19 - 1:21: [..] "But since Israeli forces finally gained access to the hospital, the military has yet to provide concrete evidence of a subterranean Hamas command centre."
2:23: "The right to self defense applies to a state when it is attacked by another, and its national security and existence are exposed to danger. At that time, this state informs the United Nations first, and then uses for to defend itself. This does not apply to the current situation. (Gaza) - Shawan Jabareen."
2:30 -2:39:"[..] Israeli forces have intentionally targeted civillian areas, throught the enclave accusing all of Gaza's residents ((Yes. Including the children that were less than a few days old who were killed.)) of being 'aware' and 'involved' with Hamas."
2:58 - 3:05: 'Meaning, over 80% of Gaza's population to flee their homes and become displaced due it's relentless air strikes."
3:28- 3:32 'So that anyone critical of the Israeli State, or its actions is invariably and automatically charged with anti-Semitism.'
3:43-3:44: 'And to discourage Jews critical of Israel's inhumane and illegal activities from speaking up.'
(Sound familiar? Oh yeah. It does. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/timeline-event/holocaust/1942-1945/german-poster-announces-death-penalty-for-aiding-jews, "I remind you that according to the Third Decree of the General Governor's concerning the residential restrictions in the General Government of 10/15/1941 (VBL; abbreviation for Verordnungsblatt Generalgouvernement, p. 595) not only Jews who have left their designated residential area will be punished with death, but the same penalty applies to anyone who knowingly provides refuge to such Jews. This includes not only the providing of a night's lodging and food, but also any other aid, such as transporting them in vehicles of any sort, through the purchase of Jewish valuables, etc.")
3:50-3:57: "The Israeli military has used deadly weapons and ammunition including white phosphorus shells in its attack on Gaza. A clear violation of international law."
(Hey sound familiar? 'Munitions containing white phosphorus were used extensively in World War II' https://www.weaponslaw.org/weapons/white-phosphorus-munitions#:~:text=White%20phosphorus%20has%20been%20used,as%20an%20anti%2Dpersonnel%20weapon.)
4:25-4:50: 'Tel Aviv has been claiming that Palestinian civilians are being killed because Hamas is using them as human shields, however no evidence has been put forth to substantiate this claim and even international organizations have been unable to verify it. In fact, rights groups argue that the use of human shields is actually a 'common practice' employed by Israeli soldiers.'(Example is shown in video.)
4:57-5:06: 'Soon after ordering Palestinians in northern Gaza to move to the south, which it [IDF] assured would be a 'safe zone', Israel began bombing the southern region alleging that it was also a centre of Hamas activity.'
5:09-5:21: 'Israeli officals designated Al Mawasi in southern Gaza as a safe zone that would have acess to humanitarian aid. Yet what displaced Palestinians found, instead, was a desolate wasteland without any infastructure.'
5:27-5:43: 'Following the killing of Al Jazeera journalist, Same Abu Daqqa in Gaza, the Israeli army stated, on Dec. 16th, that 'it has never, and will never deliberately target journalists.' (Those guys are in bright blue, for a reason.) However, since Oct. 7th, Israel has killed at least 109 journalists in Gaza." (all of which were wearing the blue vest reading 'PRESS'.)
5:53: 'It [Israel] refers to Palestinian resistance groups, including Hamas, as 'terrorist' organizations. All while Tel Aviv itself faces accusations of war crimes and human rights violations.' (Wanna go to Telegram and see some of those? Yeah? Yeah? )
6:30-7:00: 'Following Hamas's attack on Israel, Israeli media had reported that the Palestinian group had killed at least 40 babies, quoting Israeli forces as the source of this information. [..] Said that babies and toddlers had been found with their 'heads decapitated'. But soon thereafter, international journalists and news agencies who had reported the stoy walked back on their reports. (USA Today, New York Post, CNN, CBS News Miami.) and Israeli officals say that they could not confirm that any babies had been beheaded.'
-https://www.trtworld.com/video/digital/gaza-lies-israel-fed-the-world-since-october-7-16627251
Shut the fuck up. Do your research before talking. Thanks.
Holy shit
The humanities teach us the value, even for business, of criticism and dissent. When there's a culture of going along to get along, where whistleblowers are discouraged, bad things happen and businesses implode.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Chelsea Manning, who's now set to be free May 17th [2017], after Obama shortened her sentence from 35 years to seven. According to her attorneys, she is already the longest-held whistleblower in U.S. history.
Amy Goodman
States and organizations that want to deny, hunt down, criminalize and lock away any corrective action have ultimately thrown their moral compass overboard in order to hide their ethical and moral depravity. This only goes to show that the so-called responsible parties really don't want to take responsibility.
A state or organization that creates special rights denies the principle of equality of a humanistic legal system and can therefore be considered criminal.
mod
Those who adhere to ethical and moral principles serve as beacons that bring the shadows of the world to light for us.
mod
NEW YORK (AP) — Peter Buxtun, the whistleblower who revealed that the U.S. government allowed hundreds of Black men in rural Alabama to go untreated for syphilis in what became known as the Tuskegee study, has died. He was 86.
Buxtun died May 18 of Alzheimer’s disease in Rocklin, California, according to his attorney, Minna Fernan.
Buxtun is revered as a hero to public health scholars and ethicists for his role in bringing to light the most notorious medical research scandal in U.S. history. Documents that Buxtun provided to The Associated Press, and its subsequent investigation and reporting, led to a public outcry that ended the study in 1972.
Forty years earlier, in 1932, federal scientists began studying 400 Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, who were infected with syphilis. When antibiotics became available in the 1940s that could treat the disease, federal health officials ordered that the drugs be withheld. The study became an observation of how the disease ravaged the body over time.
In the mid-1960s, Buxtun was a federal public health employee working in San Francisco when he overheard a co-worker talking about the study. The research wasn’t exactly a secret — about a dozen medical journal articles about it had been published in the previous 20 years. But hardly anyone had raised any concerns about how the experiment was being conducted.
“This study was completely accepted by the American medical community,” said Ted Pestorius of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaking at a 2022 program marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the study.
Buxtun had a different reaction. After learning more about the study, he raised ethical concerns in a 1966 letter to officials at the CDC. In 1967, he was summoned to a meeting in Atlanta, where he was chewed out by agency officials for what they deemed to be impertinence. Repeatedly, agency leaders rejected his complaints and his call for the men in Tuskegee to be treated.
He left the U.S. Public Health Service and attended law school, but the study ate at him. In 1972, he provided documents about the research to Edith Lederer, an AP reporter he had met in San Francisco. Lederer passed the documents to AP investigative reporter Jean Heller, telling her colleague, “I think there might be something here.”
Heller’s story was published on July 25, 1972, leading to Congressional hearings, a class-action lawsuit that resulted in a $10 million settlement and the study’s termination about four months later. In 1997, President Bill Clinton formally apologized for the study, calling it “shameful.”
The leader of a group dedicated to the memory of the study participants said Monday they are grateful to Buxtun for exposing the experiment.
“We are thankful for his honesty and his courage,” said Lille Tyson Head, whose father was in the study.
(continue reading)
In the year 1936, only one individual maintained a lowered arm as the others did not.
Gustav Wegert (1890-1959)
A single gesture has the potential to raise questions about the entire empire.
mod
There are moments in history when you can show what you don't stand for!
To be on the current side of history's victors is not to be on the right side, because history is only measured in retrospect by the injustice that the so-called victors did during their time of power.
We are all born with a moral and ethical compass that lets us know what is good and what is evil.*
No matter how much we allow ourselves to be indoctrinated or manipulated, there is still a spark of morality alive deep within us.
This will torment us in old age, so many will seek forgiveness in religion. But once upon a time, God may forgive executioners, but history does not.
mod
*We must add that this does not apply to the mentally ill....and there are enough of them in positions of power.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
Helen Keller
wizards have it so easy. They just cast calming spells on their newborns and get back to sleep
the cognitive dissonance from people who want the products of modern medicine but get weird about animal research. like im sorry but this is necessary for the survival of the society we currently live in. and the scientists who work on these things are not evil cackling psychopaths. anyone you talk to in animal research has incredibly complex feelings about their work and incredibly complex relationships to the animals in their care. there are regulations and oversight and penalties in place to make the work as humane as possible and scientists are overwhelmingly the ones enforcing and advocating for better care.
This whole thread is literally an Ethics 101 debate. Immanuel Kant is banging on the lid of his coffin, he wants to talk to you about the Omegaverse.
"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.
"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.
"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.
"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.