Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 335: Elbit Horrors

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

The first half of today's episode is a discussion on why "rural America" is the political and cultural order of the day. Topics include Yellowstone, Beyonce's new album "Cowboy Carter," and a new book entitled "White Rural Rage." The second half of the episode is a look at some of today's Most Ethical Companies, as reported on in a fascinating article for The Nation by writer Jess McAllen, linked here: https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/the-dubious-ethics-of-the-worlds-most-ethical-companies/ Please support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

All right. No blue humor on this one, boys. What's blue humor? You know, nasty jokes. No bad jokes. No offensive material. Oh, okay, because this is a May feed. We got to be on our best behavior.

It's actually a Christian show. It's a Christian show. You've been duped, Aaron. Apparently, I mean just judge judging by all the feedback i received dms um angry people unsubscribing from patreon uh we got we got a little too blue last week uh with the humor so um this week it's purely wholesome humor um we are only doing wholesome jokes for example like like why why why is there a surgeon general and not a veterinarian general why is there not veterinarian general for the

doggos and the puppers see that was those that was wholesome humor. No humor, no black humor, no humor about anyone dying, being killed. Yeah, no, nothing about neopronouns, nothing about utopia, nothing that would indicate that these are the beliefs we 100% believe wholeheartedly, even though they're obviously inside a joke that is intended to be satire and making fun of the people. Over the top ridiculous. I even own its face. We do this for you guys.

We do this for entertainment. Just wholesome jokes. Wholesome jokes this week. That said, I've been thinking about the archetype of the crazy white boy more lately. Yeah. I think I'm going to put together something, the several documents of the crazy white boy, and trace his lineage even maybe further back than John Brown.

Yeah. I mean, you have to go. John Brown is definitely in the canon. One of the ones, I'm trying to find a print of this to put on my wall, but I can't find one for less than $20,000. Have you ever seen Gordon Parks' series from Alabama in the 40s? There's this iconic picture of the little toe-headed white boy pointing the gun, and he's got two black kids they're playing with in the yard.

That's an important document of the crazy white boy. I'd like to track this cat down he's probably in his 80s now oh wait he's not pointing the gun shook out he's not pointing the gun at the black kids he's pointing the gun no no no no no they're just like i think it's a toy gun they're just like sitting there playing in the yard well actually i don't think the crazy white boy has the gun i think one of the black kids has the gun the crazy white boy is just he's just he's just there co-signing as well support yeah i was i was thinking about this too because uh i saw this tweet um that was going around uh i wish i could remember the account but um it's one of those big uh communist accounts uh but marxist accounts but they it was a tiktok man

i don't know where it was but these three four white boys um the first one has a ridiculous like bowl cut it's really funny but they're these kids they all have like these uh these play toys like the first kid has like a like a bow and arrow you know and uh and the the guy behind them behind filming him was talking chinese and i don't know what he's saying to them but the joke is that your innocent white children are gonna become like chinese communists you know and it just had me also thinking about you know re reappropriating i guess the crazy white boy as a force of good because this is something that you had mentioned a couple weeks ago, Tom. And I feel you, you know. The archetype slipped a little bit in the aughts.

With the guy that's, you know, his woman's at the cash register and she's paying all the time and he's got his arms wrapped around her, you know what I mean? So he slipped for a second, but I feel like he's due for a comeback. This is going to be the election of the crazy white boy because the every election the election the crazy white technically yes it is but yes and it feels like there has been a deluge in a way that it wasn't with 2020 weirdly enough because 2020 was a exceptional year where history was actually moving where

things were moving forward for better or worse they were actually the gears were in motion this yeah it didn't feel like things were stagnant yeah 2024 man this is 2016 uh like reprised right because like i mean i've got this book, White Rural Rage, The Threat to American Democracy. I mean, there's multiple books like that. Like the Reverend Barber, who, you know, I mean, whatever, say what you want. He's just kind of like a Saul Alinsky, like idealist type.

He's not like a commie or anything. He did his Moral Mondays thing, I remember. Yeah, he's got a book out called White Poverty. I mean, it's all like a commie or anything it did his moral mondays thing i remember yeah he's got a book out called white poverty um i mean it's all like they're all and i guess it's because like jd vance won in 2022 and because he might be made trump's vp pick like but but it's now the it's the hillbilly elegy, sorry, hillbilly elegy election. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I think, you know how 2020 was sort of this, well, 2020, I guess, is sort of this referendum, you know,

on the Trump presidency, you know. And it was a sort of holdover from this discourse about the white working class that all these op-ed writers in the New York Times, the Atlantic were writing about. Trump's base, you know what I mean? The silent majority, I guess. Or I guess some sort of evolution of the silent majority. So, I don't know. This just feels like a redo. It feels like, I think about, I know it's kind of trite but it really does feel like that uh true detective season one you know yeah matthew mcconaughey is

kind of flipping that that's another another rust and coal another crazy white boy another crazy white boy but uh it does indeed feel like uh we are we are not just circling the dread but we are returning back to something you know what i mean we're repeating this again can i tell you what i'm hearing i'm hearing the dinner bell ringing boys time to eat we're fixing we're fixing to eat good next cup several months oh you mean you mean with the uh you mean with the horse race well you know uh just uh just the if if the white rural agenda is back on the docket there will be yeah i mean obviously it never left the docket however like i said it wasn't as big of a force in the discourse in 2020 just because of the pandemic and you know everything uh but it is

back full force and um you know i i want to save my thoughts about white rural rage because i kind of want to do a whole episode about it but i'll just say this i'll just say this the the libs they have truly innovated a new uh they've they've made a new innovation in the discourse on this they have now fully come around to being like, fuck those people. Like the entire... So it's not even just like their, what did Hillary call them? Deplorables anymore? No, I mean, like deplorables was generous compared to what these guys,

the authors of White Rural Rage are saying about the dumb yokels in the sticks. Let me ask you a question. I don't want to give too much away, but do you think they want to put us in camps? One thousand percent. And I've got to respect it, honestly. I kind of got to respect it, because it's like, at least they're just saying that now.

It's kind of nice to just have them say like they are beyond rehabilitation they're beyond help they need to be put in like camps where they can be ideologically reconditioned they need to be put re-educated i respect that like it's fucking it's better than, like, the condescending, like, you know, we need to show up in their communities. The Democrats haven't shown up in their communities for a long time, and we need to show up. Because, like, let's be real. The truth is that if the Democrats did show up, it wouldn't make a fucking difference. It wouldn't matter. No, if anything, it would be worse.

It would be worse. It would reflect poorly upon them if they did show up. It would take also, like, many, many decades to repair the damage they've done in just a short period of time. So it's not even something that could be tenable in the near term at all. Yeah. Yeah. I like how they're casting the American hillbilly as an irredeemable animal that needs to be put down, though.

It's kind of cool. Finally! It's kind of cool. Somebody said it. Yeah, I think it's kind of cool. It just reminds me of a, I don't know, man. I know that this is in a different context, but it reminds me of that Malcolm X uh malcolm x quote the wolf or the fox you know and how the liberals right um at that time he was talking about the liberals as being the fox

you know what i mean that they're sly and slick whereas the right wing at least like my my my uh my in little inside joke about it is that i would rather you call me a nigga than give me a tax credit because i'm a nigga you know what i mean, I'd rather know where you come from and where you stand than, you know, these piecemeal sort of. But it's interesting that now they're just like, they're just full-throatedly like, yeah, we are going to round you guys up and put you in camps and have you put you out of the picture. To be fair, they don't say round them up, put them in camps. But the implication is that they are irredeemable. And that's, again, that's like, you know, I got to hand it to them. Because that's at least just saying what you mean.

Well, I mean, isn't it the same sort of logic when they say that, you know, the South should be abandoned, you know? And then people will bring up, you know, like people often bring up like, oh, that's the biggest concentration of like, you know, black people. But I mean, it's the biggest concentration of poor people in the country. You know what I mean? Well, yeah. I mean, again, I don't want to get too deep into it. But the book does like the classic, like by by rural we mean the South. It's just like everything is a code word for something else.

Everything is a dog whistle for libs. The libs at this point have their own vocabulary of dog whistles. They have their own schematic of welfare queens. Their own conspiracies. Their own conspiracies. of welfare queens like conspiracies their own conspiracies like like they accuse they accuse rural people of being like they use the exact same language reagan used about welfare queens but they use it for why rural people in this that is so crazy both parties this is what i've been trying to hammer away at for like months now like on the patreon this past week both parties have

their own fully fleshed out like vocabulary constellation cosmology of you know grievances and who's to blame and none of it is like uh like they'll make uh hints at capitalism in this book but it's it's the poor reprobate like coal smudge uh white people in the sticks and they're siphoning off resources from the cities and they're living off government largesse they say these things like this is not me making that up so it's not they didn't create the value for all that anyway you know that's that's one last thing i don't want to uh i don't want to give too much away but i just want to say that's so interesting the economic spin of it because i would assume that they would run with the cultural right i would assume that they would like these people are philistines right well

they do that and they need to they're uncultured but it's interesting that now they've leaned into pretty much the welfare queen analogy as you said that was lee atwater kind of a pioneer you know well what's funny is they can't even make that argument anymore because white rural culture is dominant culture right now. It's having that moment. I mean, Beyonce, the biggest black artist in the world, just put out an album called

Cowboy Carter where she's... To capitalize off of Yellowstone. Everyone's Yellowstone. Everyone's Yellowstone-ing. Everybody's checking that Yellowstone bag. Y'all should be proud. You guys should be happy, dude. I'm not not proud. I should say.

It's your time to shine, dude. Azalea Banks did have it correct. That is the most half-assed, lazy-ass title I've ever heard. Cowboy Cart. That's like a Trillbillies episode title. Literally when I saw it, I was like, yo, is this like a podcast title or some shit like what is this yeah and also too bad i don't know man like i i don't know this is probably not what you plan to talk about but i just want to say i thought since when i would think it would be interesting if like as i said in the chat with

you guys if she had uh kind of uh like explore the intersection between like you know um black people and country music because i don't know that intersection myself right and i know that it's an important part it's not i'm gonna even say maybe maybe to people like me right um black americans like me but maybe a lost or forgotten part of black history black american history you know um but she's not gonna do that shit you know what i mean like azalea banks in her comment she was like uh uh you know you could you could basically she could be subversive but that's not beyonce you know what i mean that's not that's beyonce's that'd be much more interesting if if she were though you know what i mean to be that

huge and also just kind of like what i don't understand with like a lot of artists of that caliber like the beyonce's the taylor swift's the drakes to some degree and all that kind of stuff it's like it's just like we were talking about like biden could just have anybody's head he wanted like you are not using your leverage like you should you know what i mean you could literally just destroy the music industry because you don't need it yeah yeah and you could just bring the rising tide with you and lift everybody up but like for some reason they just like kind of balk on that i don't know i just i just think it's um someone sent me this man i wish i could remember who sent me this if you if you're the one who sent me this um let me know but uh the houston astros a few months ago or it was the rockets i can't remember it was the right it was the Houston Rockets this was what made it very weird it was the Rockets they had a Yellowstone night

where it's like wait what because it's like you know I mean a basketball game an NBA game like you're encouraged to wear your like cowboy boots and cowboy hat and it's like so is it becoming like a franchise like Star Wars oh yeah like a Yellowstone world well it's it's like so is it becoming like a franchise like star wars oh like a yellowstone world well it's it's yes you're right it's become a franchise like star wars and it's also become an aesthetically because for the longest time what was in was the south and now it's the west obviously uh which is really funny for me because I've only lived in the South or the West my entire life. But there's no distinction in the minds of other people. You know what I mean?

Right. You know what I'm saying? Like, Montana might as well be Kentucky, might as well be Texas, might as well be a place that, you know, a place where, like Terrence said, just these, you know, Backwater, Hicks, Prezai, that's going to be the South monolithically in their minds. Exactly. Doesn't matter if it's Iowa or a place not in the South. It's sort of the way that I think about the Civil War. The Civil War doesn't really divide just North and South, right? It's like a cultural associations, right?

So like even the associations that people make between, I guess, I don't know. I just think maybe people think about like the South and the Southwest. This is broad swath, you know what I mean? Right. Just all these people that are just sprinkled there either in their, you know, in their desert towns or either in the hills, right? You know what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, so if the Houston Rockets, I guess we should have known that Beyonce would have a Cowboy album coming out because if the Houston Rockets are doing, I'm just going to say it, all right? I don't think a lot of, like, white people are going to Houston Rockets games. Yes, they are, but I have to imagine that they're probably not cowboys, and the black people that are going probably aren't cowboys either. Probably not cowboys either, so who is this for? But it's an aesthetic choice, though.

You know what I mean? It's just kind of having a moment in the same way that like America is kind of like a Halloween place. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just like every, when ministry said every day is Halloween, like that,

like they're talking about America basically where like, you know what I mean? Like everybody just kind of wears a costume all the time. The Tocqueville famously said that when he came to America in the 1800s, he was like, Oh, America, like a halloween town how do you say like spring halloween yo that's such a good point man because um

i don't know i'm just thinking i'm trying to make parallels because i'm just thinking of this is for very different reasons but i'm just thinking about the 2020 right the protests right the george floyd protests and seeing how like and i guess blackness has always been commodified in different ways right when i say blackness this nebulous association right racist stereotypes short but um um some true you know uh cultural narratives i guess right or legitimate cultural narratives but i just remember seeing man um during that those weeks that that whole summer protest going on amazon and seeing like like categories right for like black products right or on or uber eats like

black owned businesses you know what i mean and it was just like and i even remember when um you know juneteenth had become a federal holiday you know and i remember seeing like not even a a brand of a specific brand of ice cream this is like the generic brand the great value fucking juneteenth ice cream at walmart you know what i mean so it's just like dude i remember posting on twitter i just could not fucking believe it it's just like dude like juneteenth i took a picture i went to walmart i was like bro like what and it tasted like trash because i wanted to buy it i was like this is good no it's horrible it's one of those things where it's like well now i have to buy i guess just once just to see what it's about it's so funny you know i feel like every black person that buys that at the cash register it's like

a military discount you know what i mean yeah exactly my point is that i'm just saying what you i'm adding to what you're saying tom it's like we it's like what we do instead of actually dealing with true grievances is that we just like commodify you know what i'm saying we just pay lip service it's like the person at the self-checkout's like, well, how can we be sure? We got a lot of dolas out there today. I know I'm looking at you, but what am I looking at? You need to do a brown paper bag test just to make sure.

I mean, shit, man, maybe that's what they should do, dog. If you're going to commodify everybody's, like, culture and, you know, like, cultural identity, maybe you should just give them, like, all right, tax credits. You know what I mean? Yeah. When is, like, the Northeast going to come back in? Are we going to have, like, Boston Brahmins? We're just going to cycle right back to, like, Boston Brahmins being, like, what?

They're going to have a Boston Brahmins night at the Houston cycle right back to to like boston brahmins being like what they're gonna have a boston brahmins night at the houston rockets i heard the celtics not yeah yeah even better just had a place where it doesn't make sense i will not be going there i'll tell you that but like i'm thinking of you said northeast i'm thinking didn't that the northeast have his whole like maybe this is different i'm thinking like Friends and Sex and the City and like the whole era of the night, maybe like the late 90s to the 2000s when it felt like everything was cosmopolitan. You know what I mean? Like maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like that was when the Northeast maybe had its highlight.

Yeah, I think it does get at something that's like, you're right. The 90s was the cosmopolitan decade. Like it's now for various reasons and we could, you know know this is why i want to spend a whole episode trying to get into it but for various reasons now like what is in is the authentic rural backwater and like and that is something that these writers of that book get right which is that like ruralness is perceived to be closer to authenticity and that in that like that is as a virtue signal as a political signifier that's what you mean when you say rural and that's what the conservatives uh harp on it so much but um anyways yeah i don't know like uh do they in that book do they echo yellowstone in it they don't mention it once i

was really surprised that's funny it's like the pre like just the sort of document of the time which is funny that for a show that's so clearly meandering at this point and like kind of like just they've painted themselves into a corner it feels like with the writing writing. And there's flashes of that show that are really great. I'm not just bagging on it out of hand or anything like that. I don't know. Anyway. Parts of it. There's people in it.

The first season is serviceable after that, dude. I've got to watch this show, man. I'm sleeping on this show. Anyways. Yeah, I mean, but it's like yeah I don't know like for a show that does not know where it itself is going it like casts a long shadow

right kind of like maybe a similar analogy to Walking Dead we had a really high cultural moment and then just overstayed its welcome. Well, you can't. How do you end a show?

How do you end a show like Yellowstone? Kill the main character. Well, I mean, I guess you could kill the main character, sure. I think he's actually leaving it, right? Isn't Costner leaving the show? He is, yeah. He's actually about to release his own movie, right? Like it's a Western.

It's like another modern Western. He's really obsessed with Westerns right now. Why am I giving Taylor Sheridan this money when I can get it myself? I can do this myself. I don't know how you end it because... Or I don't know how you tie it up in a narratively convenient way when the whole point

of the show is that like these people are mythological stand-ins for an uh an eternal identity that is the at the core of america it's like you at the end of sopranos you can kill off tony soprano because what what is the what are the first lines of the Sopranos? I think the very first line of the Soprano, first episode. I always felt like I got in at the very end of something. It's like you can kill him off because, yes, he is at the very end of something. And so that was the genius of that show. With Yellowstone, they've made them mythic.

They're gods. They're demigods. They have existed from time immemorial like they go back to the founding of america so they don't have an end because they didn't have a beginning and that's why they kept stretching the series back farther and farther in time like 1920s 1880s and and still wasn't able to like really form that connective tissue i mean like it's entertaining on its face but from a story perspective it like like what okay what's the point we see harrison ford's character and he was like one of the ogs or whatever but like yeah the the point connective tissue is not as

strong as like the mythologies of other shows exactly because the point is that you're right like narratively it wouldn't work because the point is not showing the point is not showing like the generational conflicts here. Because like the generational conflicts are pretty much wrapped up by the end of season two of Yellowstone. It's like, yeah, they fight within the family and everything. But like the contradictions at the heart of their thing, like a kid who's trying to slum it, one of the kids trying to be a lawyer or whatever. Like by the end of season two, they've all pretty much realized like,

well, we've at least got family. We're Americans and we're right. We've got family, brother. We've got family, brother. And it's like, there's no narrative conflict there if you're stretching it back a hundred years because that point, at that point, is not to show the narrative conflict it's to show that these are eternal mythical figures to reaffirm the mythology right yeah

yeah you know what i think uh i think that's kind of a uh like a like a failing right or something to kind of be aware of when you're i guess when you're covering um when you're trying to mythologize something i guess because you kind of trap it in amber, you know what I mean? And it's only something that I guess like you can kind of observe and present to people in something that's not, I guess, organic and flowing, you know what I mean, historically speaking, you know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think another reason why that kind of falls a little flat is like it's clear Taylor Sheridan really kind of believes in manifest

destiny oh 100 rather than like it's like at first going into it i thought well this is going to be like a critique of it you know what i mean of that like how we got here and all this kind of stuff it is it abundantly exceedingly clear that he kind of harbors some of john dutton's views no i mean you're right i think he's like the last american who like believes in the literal original vision of manifest destiny like if he had his druthers he would invade canada and mexico and just keep pushing them you know what i mean like he really does believe so not even not even like not even like a sort of um uh globalized version of that right where we use like a trade and commerce right to extend our influence you'd be like actually go there

and snatch canada like it's like manifest destiny when you see the all the those old cartoons and it's this big white guy standing on the border of mexico or some shit like that with his arms open he's like it's for all of us but that's the thing it's like so much of yellowstone is about land so much so that i mean i i pay attention to this stuff right like because i get deep into the woods on like land holding patterns and municipal bond issuing and just this is like really wonky stuff and there's stuff in this show that not even i can keep up with we're like bet dutton beth dutton's like we're gonna put a co5 on the 352 and a cdp on our bond land and all this and i'm like what the fuck are they talking about so much of it is these like complex land schemes this is alchemy this is it really is i mean like that's what land holding

is if you go back to john, it was literally alchemy. It was like you put labor and sweat into the land, and therefore it becomes productive, and private property is born. It's alchemy. Jesus. Yeah, he has that line, I think it's season two, where he was like, this is the kind of thing, they're all looking at him to the ranch,

this is the kind of thing that you would buy if you had all the money. You couldn't buy if you had all the money in the world. Right. And it's like, okay, I see what's going on here. And also Taylor Sheridan kind of reminds me. He's kind of like a Scott Fitzgerald in a lot of ways. It's like he is a guy from Texas. He is a guy that has proximity to that

but he has kind of positioned himself as like the authentic one in Hollywood amongst a bunch of like pussy liberals that don't really like get it you know what I mean and he's written some great stuff I'm not I mean we've talked about Sicario we've talked about Hell or High Water and all this kind of stuff and I'm not like bagging him, but he does have a little... It's a sort of status anxiety and, like, a fear that, like... I'm sure if you went back to Texas where he's from, people that knew him before,

he was probably just, you know, some artsy-fartsy kid or something like that. But now that he's, like, accomplishing stuff, he's got to be like, you know, I'm the real Texan. Top beat. You know what i mean right and i understand that you know

it just reminds me of the imposter syndrome that we were talking about with jd vance you know yeah i mean and having having to return back from when she came you know you have to double down in a way on your identity because you do have this like fear of fraudulence that like you have left that area you've left that culture and so like you have to then double down on it to prove to everyone in yourself that you are you're authentic california guy yeah exactly i didn't change Yeah I didn't change up You changed Well let's Table the Yellowstone white rural rage

That's a sentence I'm Never going to be able to say or that Title I'm never going to be able to say white rural Rage it's A fucking train wreck White rural rage We'll table that for A future discussion It's a fucking train wreck of a phrase. Why wage? Why wage? We'll table that for a future discussion.

And this has actually been very helpful that we took 30 minutes talking about this because I only have one article keyed up for today. And it's a good one. But I think that you guys will really enjoy this. This one hits on all the Trillbilly notes. that you guys will really enjoy this. This one hits on all the Trillbilly notes. All of our pet hobbies

since, at least since I got sober anyways. California sober. Since I dried out. Since I dried out, yeah. This is written by a friend of the show, Jess McAllen in The Nation.

It's called The Dubious Ethics of the, quote, world's most ethical companies. Ethisphere has a proprietary metric for assessing how morally correct companies are. Okay. Can I just preface this with just a thought? I'm just reminded of uh google's uh company uh slogan don't be evil and um how and how and how how how i mean i mean that just says it all that yeah yo that's real dog i mean i don't know if it's still their slogan but that was i mean you can look at all that shit up right now but yeah that's, it's just so, it's, I mean, it's ironic, you know.

Oh my God. So stupid. I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Don't be evil was their former motto before, I guess they restructured under Alphabet, whatever they are now. It hits on the themes we kind of hit on last week's episode of the Mixtopia. Like, just, like... Everything is...

Advertises itself as the opposite of what it is, but then kind of, like, winks and nods to say that, like, we know. Like, you know what I'm saying? We know that you know that we know. And, like, this is the little end joke. I know that you know

that I know that you want to fuck me hey norton get over and start fucking this is um but it also gets at uh something that like i said is a pet as a hobby horse which is ethics we've been talking about ethics for years now. Ethics, as you will remember, was invented all the way back in ancient Greece by a little man called Aristotle. Aristotle. Total Rube. The first Rube.

Is that what you said? Arguably the first smart, dumb guy. Ethics, and I'm going to completely bastardize this for the philosophy knowers in the audience but ethics was an innovation in philosophy that took what they purported to be known truths about the world and turned them into self-help books. So ethics as a genre or as a thread in philosophy is basically self-help that takes normative claims about the human experience that aren't cultural in any way, obviously. They're not influenced by culture and things like that.

They are profoundly objective truths about the nature. They're inane. Exactly. They are inane and derived from the forms in fact i should note for going further that yeah you're just saying like based on what they knew about the world it's important note that that wasn't much exactly they would take poops and be like where did the poop come from man how did i get there what happened and then they'd say stuff like some some hydra must have dropped it off in my mouth while i was sleeping or something like that and this is the society that these white nationalists want to base modern precepts on did they have like a poop stick did we cover that before it

was like a stick that everybody used to wipe their ass and I guess you wash it off and you would do it communal shit stick oh dear is it the ethical thing to do that's the question is that the ethical thing to do that's the real question here that's the real question that's what they were trying to figure out is it ethical to share the shit stick

and I guess they determined that it was the ancient greeks sound smart actually shit stupid hillbillies sound dumb actually transcendently brilliant that's exactly right that's right um okay uh all right so i'm just gonna start reading here 18 years ago in the wake of a series of fraudulent business scandals where major companies used accounting sleights of hand to cook their books, fool regulators, and gouge customers, people were fed up. So the Ethisphere Institute and its world's most ethical companies list was born. Ethisphere?

It occurred to the Ethisphere team, Erica Salmon-Byrne, Ethisphere's chief strategy officer and executive chair, told me, that there was nobody that was celebrating the companies that were doing things well. Ethisphere, a for-profit institution started in 2006, which describes itself as a tool to accelerate ethical business, has expanded significantly since its creation. In addition to producing its yearly list of the world's most ethical companies ethisphere hosts a podcast called the ethicast oh no a news also can i just say that uh what did he say he said that uh uh that why aren't companies that are doing a good job being like you know recognized that's like you know when i take the bus and i get off the bus i'm like say to drive thanks for not killing me you know what i mean i mean i guess it's i guess it's when people clap when the plane lands but that's different you know what i mean especially

nowadays with poet boy you should give an outstanding ovation related to you in one piece yeah you should you should kiss the ground that pilot walks on yeah lighting a cigar and like fucking toasting champagne popping a champagne bottle exactly exactly cue up the first few chords of the oj's for the love of money as you're walking off i'm just saying i don't think i don't think corporations should be uh rewarded for doing a good job i think that's just uh if anything that is actually the uh the uh the the antithesis of their function you know what i mean yeah i mean like basically this is companies patting themselves on the back and they've devised a complex like you know just writes here they have

a proprietary algorithm or calculation formula that tells them what is moral and what's not and we'll get into that in a minute um we're gonna make that shit an ai dog my god too quick to talk about so we have the ethicast a newsletter ethosphere insights and runs the business ethics leadership alliance which allows members to access a concierge service where business executives can ponder ethical quandaries. For example, how do I measure and assess third-party risk? So I looked this up, just provided a YouTube link to the concierge service, like instruction manual, basically. And it's like two people talking about so like here's what happens right let's say like you are running a business and you have to make

an in the moment decision like okay you run like a mining operation in africa and like fucking you're you know you're on the grand manager accidentally like set up a real life trolley problem where there's like a hundred people on one side of the railroad tracks and like a hundred children on the other side of the railroad tracks and they're like well fuck which one and the train is barreling towards the fork in the railroad track so So they call 9-0 to an ethics. They call 9-0. What should we do? Get the motherfuckers on speed dial. Your white time is now two hours and 47 minutes, but the trolley's coming now.

They play like elevated music for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the problem. It's a massive bead of sweat while you're watching the train get closer and closer to the wait wait they have you on hold don't worry they have you on hold if you'd like a call back please if you don't want you like your call back okay everything's gonna be fine they're gonna call us back soon yeah no it's like 50 children

on one side and like 500 adults on the other side. You've got an ethical dilemma you need. So you can call 911 Ethics. He's like, in his mind, he's like, God, how do I... There's about 10,000 rats. What is... How can I get

out of this? Two lines, 10,000 rats or something like that? Oh, fuck. This actually does hint at something, which is interesting, which is that there is a human on the other side of... At least for now. I mean, I'm sure they'll put an AI. For now, give it six months.

Give it six months. They'll just put it in chat GPT. But ostensibly, at least for now, there's a human on the other side of this who, like me, is very well read in ethics. Like, knows all the ethical ins and outs and, like, knows what. They have the ethics manual for humanity, and they can consult that and give you in real time. It's a tome. It's a tome. as big as a small child but it has a lot of bookmarks in it so you can easily get to any place that you need to so that's the thing like you know you're in high you're in college you're undergrad what am i gonna

do with my philosophy degree there's nothing i'm gonna do with my diploma wrong you can go work for the concierge 911 ethics and you know give real-time advice to ceos you could do harm reduction you could do reduction right um okay uh okay there is also a global ethics summit which occurs in tandem with the honoree gala it becomes ever more necessary to have a discussion about ethics the 2024 summit agenda reads and how we can ask a question real quick yeah i'll just say the thought this whole thing so far it's like it's a lot of talking about ethics but not a lot of doing ethics it's not a lot of doing ethical shit you know what i mean it's the classic like we just need to talk about this thing and raise awareness about this thing yeah aaron conversations are ethical okay they're ethical we're having an ethical conversation right now yes it becomes ever

more necessary to have a discussion about ethics and how we can maintain morality in our world morality i'm just again not doing good things but maintaining morality i love these people man i should all be at the bottom of the fucking ocean yeah i mean you've got you know you've got a dime in mind you have to meet quotas you have 50 adult villagers who are on the brink of starvation who you can you know work hard and get your quota or you can go to the next village and kidnap 100 children who you know work harder and need less calorie and caloric input to get you there's smaller hands or more depth fit in more crevices which is the ethical thing to do technically so what's the ethical answer here

both both non-profits and for-profit companies can apply with the exception of ngos government agencies and non-profit colleges and universities last week ethosphere made its annual announcement of the 136 most ethical companies across the globe prompting a wave of press releases kudos from the financial world and a video from one of the year's winners from the financial world sorry yeah it's that guy that had the thai coconut farm that was ran by monkeys um prompting a wave of press releases kudos from the financial world and a video from one of this year's winners defense contractor booze alan hamilton that's right uh basically like you know the business that runs the CIA, for-profit enterprises, that's Booz Allen Hamilton. They get the highest marks.

Do what, Tom? They get the highest marks, is what you're saying? Yeah, they're this year's winner of the most ethical company in the world. And a five-time recipient. And a five-time recipient. A five-time recipient. Five-time honoree. I've got questions about this five-time honoree the celebration video says a cartoon drone hovering beside it you know these people are so i mean like dog it's like i mean i guess it just goes back to

like like doing the opposite you know or like the wink i guess right the wink and the nod you know what i mean like i mean i don't know man when i see a drone the association that i make is like i mean especially with like uh like this is the company getting the award uh-huh it's people being slaughtered by drones right it's not like this is a friendly drone you know what i mean this is not clippy you're right but clippy this is not droney like come on dude what the fuck bro yeah you write your papers and droney helps you do you have a question about how to format is to target it for you you're right booze allen hamilton isn't even a company in the way that like US Steel is right or like Ford it doesn't manufacture anything but violence and just political disruption around maybe the ethical

thing is that like they are ethically by making these they're making these weapons to uh to make the world a better place you know that's what they're doing. You know? Um, well, here's in the Wattsburg yellow jacket, 1998, uh, middle school yearbook. There was an ad in the back. So you'd sell ads to local businesses and they'd sponsor the yearbook. You know,

there was there. I'll never forget Frank's gun and pond. What their tagline was Frank's gun and pond, the friendly gun shop. And, uh, tagline was frank's gun and pond the friendly gun shop and uh i always laugh about that all the time that's kind of what they're saying that booze allen hamilton is here it's like we're we're the friendly defense contractor i mean they might as well it's like like walking into like uh like a gun store and like the uh the awning is colorful and shit like that. They make it look like a toy store or something like that, you know.

It's like frilly and soft inside, you know. I really love Droney, the clippy like uh the clippy like assistant for when you're doing your charts. You're doing your charts and graphs of how many people you've killed

around the world this year. How many counter-revolutionary groups have you supported? Dronie, can we get a number crunch on how many heads of state we've assassinated this quarter? Oh, we love you, Dronie.

Other awardees from this year include the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, the health insurance company Blue Shield of California, and the Fortune 500 toy manufacturer Hasbro. Dog. Blue Shield of California. I mean, health insurance. Like, I mean, at least on American soil, is there any company that has more blood on its hands than a health insurance company? Yeah, those are by definition unethical companies

because they're the middleman to people getting health care. Not even a middleman, actually. They're an obstacle to people getting health care. It's the reason people don't take ambulances when they've got, like, their fucking arms severed. It's like, I'll walk it off, bro. I can't afford an ambulance. Nah, bro.

Please don't call the ambulance, bro. Please don't call the ambulance. Dude, yeah. It's the reason you have to triage who lives and dies. Truly, in some ways, even more insidious than droning the boys. You know what I would say, too? You know that's bad. You know what I'm saying?

This is like a scam wrapped in a scam wrapped in a scam. Healthcare. American healthcare. You know what I would say, too? You know that's bad. You know what I'm saying? But this is like a scam wrapped in a scam wrapped in a scam. Healthcare, American healthcare. You know what I mean? And we're all trying to convince each other that making a 14% improvement in outcomes is like that constitutes morality and not actually just giving people care. Exactly. Exactly. Also, too too i think we could look at this awards uh this uh the awardees we could look at this whole process and just say

that these are the most evil companies actually yeah i mean the companies that have been awarded the most ethical are actually the most evil companies based on their judging by their standards well once we get honest with you if our high water marks are droney, I have to say, I think that the Thai coconut monkey guy, whoever's behind that outfit, he makes a compelling case to take the roses next year. Do you know what his job is? Monkey unemployment was hovering around 0% last year until he came along. I mean, banana poverty, banana deficits.

That's true. Well, once we get into, like, the ethics questionnaire, it'll be a little easier. It'll be a little more clear to see how they define what's ethical. Okay. Okay, so it's not a new thing, Jess writes. Corporations using confusing acronyms and equations to congratulate themselves. There is CSR, corporate social responsibility, and ESG, a criteria for investments focused on environmental, social, and corporate governance, or what conservatives call woke capitalism. But where

Ethisphere differs is its focus on a quantifiable and astute sounding measure whose complexity seems to compel corporations into inherent trust. The press department at ethosphere told me about its proprietary formula the highly complex and trademarked ethics quotient methodology companies bestowed with the honor of scoring high enough can use the world's most ethical company's logo on their website and enjoy a glossy reputation this is like a nintendo like seal of quality don't trust it is unless it's got the nintendo sticker yo these people are so funny oh my god yo some of this year's honorees include seven-time winner

a weapons manufacturer that creates products for the U.S. Army. Two years ago. Oh, my God. Dude, it gets even worse. Two years ago, the company was awarded the Pentagon's Project Mayhem contract to develop an unmanned hypersonic aircraft. On its website, it boasts next gen strike systems and technology for today's warfighter bro they're trying to make the plane from stealth come on no no this is literally the shit in science fiction that they this is they're literally

giving awards to companies that are like the science fiction villains in every fucking novel dude what the fuck then there's 10-time honoree u.s bank which the consumer financial protection bureau ordered to pay nearly 21 million dollars last year after blocking out-of-work customers from receiving unemployment benefits at the height of the pandemic we work hard to ensure to do the right thing in everything we do noted noted a U.S. bank representative. Except what is the right thing to do. Except what is the right thing to do. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center was awarded for the sixth time, despite being ordered to pay the federal government $8.5 million last year in a lawsuit over falsely billing federal programs as well as jeopardizing patient health. But here we go. here's the kicker but the company that really takes the cake is six-time honoree elbit systems

of america a subsidiary of israel's major weapons firm elbit systems the company's israeli counterpart reportedly supplies around 85 of the idf's drones and land-based equipment, which as of late have been used to kill residents of Gaza. Elbit doesn't shy away from its involvement in Palestine. The company's website advertises its iron-seeing weapon, which features neutralization of targets within six and a half miles as the answer to the complex reality. Following October 7th, it has also been involved in the militarization of the... The complex reality.

You see my face, bro? following October 7th. It has also been involved in the militarization of the... Complex reality. Complex reality. You see my face, bro? They gave the award to a literal baby killer. That's insane. Dude, there's a story in the New Yorker this morning about children that have... I mean, there's like hundreds of children in Gaza that are now amputees.

There's a story in the New Yorker about them this morning. I mean, absolutely astonishing uh you know abhorrent just you know one of the most grim things you could possibly imagine um i'd be willing to hazard a guess that probably a solid well just by its own metric here 85 of those kids who are now mtts were probably, you know, had that done to them by Elbit Systems supplied resources and materials. They're giving them awards. They're

going to give away the Charles Manson Lifetime Achievement Award. Next year. The John Wade Gacy. Actually, that's actually a disservice to charles manson it really is actually sorry jay wayne gacy my bad the zodiac killer cryptography award elbit the slow but don milosevic lifetime achievement award

the jack the Ripper Appreciation Award. Just, Jesus. On its website, Elbit advertises its 2023 Ethisphere Ethics Inside Certification alongside values like be bold, be open, and do the right thing. So when they drop them bombs on Palestinians, is the sticker attached to it or some shit like that? Is the seal of equality attached to it? It says Ethisphere Ethics inside certification on the bomb. That's the last thing you see. Dude, I fucking hate these people, dude. Two out of three ain't bad, I guess.

When asked how these weapons, or when asked how these practices, particularly the creation of weapons that kill thousands of people each month, square with an ethical world, Sam and Byrne told me there have been multiple internal discussions about the contradiction. You use the word ethics,

and it has such an emotional resonance for so many people, and everybody has a slightly different definition of what ethics is to them personally. She said, all right, is it ethical or not to kill children? Like, let's start there. Let's start there. Yo. It is an amazing dodge of a question

that, like, should be pretty straightforward like not a lot of not a lot of ambiguity in that question created a generation you've either wiped out a generation or created a generation of maimed traumatized terrorized people and you're gonna sit here and pat yourself on your fucking back for how you do business like here's what i hope happens to you i hope one day you know a comparable horror to like remember that show chernobyl yeah that entirely fictional account i hope that these motherfuckers end up like the radiated sick people in the fucking tents you know then their body just eats them from the outside and then their brain is the last thing to go and you die the most agonizing death imaginable

because that's no morphine you just feel that shit and somehow we make that happen without bombing a place because that's just going to fucking kill those other people too and give these people fucking money well and here's the thing. Yeah, also, yeah, it's good economics for these cunts. Exactly. And here's the thing. To me, that would be quite ethical. That would be quite ethical. You could very easily square that with a vision of ethics because, I mean, if you've already decided it's ethical

to maim thousands of children at this point, I mean, Jesus, man. ethical to maim thousands of children at this point i mean i mean jesus man there's not a death you could imagine that really is is appropriate i don't think yeah i mean we get close maybe with the um the mathematical methodology used for assessing good ethics has skewed toward internal company ethics salmon burn said as opposed to is the product that they put out ultimately something that everybody would personally agree with from their own sense of individual ethics. I wondered what Salmonburn's moral compass was telling her when I had

started listing the weapons companies that featured prominently on Ethisphere's list. I forgot the name of one and stammered. I'm forgetting the other one. I said, I think it starts with L. Salmonburn interjected Lidos. This caught me by surprise as I naively assumed that

the leaders of Ethisphere might be afraid of admitting that they'd put this kind of company on their list. After all, while Salmonburn was happy to be interviewed, journalists are not allowed to attend their celebratory gala in April held at a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. Seats range from $150. Atlanta where? Atlanta, Georgia, you said? Atlanta, Georgia. Seats range from $150. Atlanta where?

Atlanta, Georgia, you said? Atlanta, Georgia, brother. Okay, okay. Yeah. That's good information, I know. Bird man hand row. Bird man hand row. So, okay.

Here we get into the ethics quotient. Sam and Bern, however, was more than happy to share the secrets behind the ethics quotient. Sam and Bern, however, was more than happy to share the secrets behind the ethics quotient. The methodology consists of a survey where applicants respond to some 240 questions in five different sections. The 2024 questionnaire asks, among other things, what percentage of board directors self-identify as female or non-binary? How a company's board oversees its talent human capital strategy and does your organization have a policy on policies yo what is this what does it have anything to do with not killing people i don't understand this

what does this have to do with not killing people this is an sat for basic human decency dog what the fuck is wrong with these people basically it's ethical as long as it's not straight white men doing it okay okay is that you see what i'm saying yeah yeah as you just say i was so it is the uh it's the wokeness uh the wokeness principle i mean i started i started filling out the profile for our business, for Truebillies, LLC. Let's see. Blue Humor, LLC. I just changed the name. Let's see.

Please indicate the country where your organization is headquartered. Well, many may not know this, but our organization is actually headquartered in Dubai. Dubai. So we are uh previously micronesia that's a switch over including the country where your organization is headquartered in approximately how many countries does your organization operate i don't know what are the numbers on that how many countries are we operating in i mean i'll do a number crunch for you real quick yeah two seconds give me a number crunch bro we've been waiting for a day when we could do that we gotta go outside of just even

countries man we might have a uh galactic galactic there's radio waves going out there dog you might have a motherfuckers on i don't know europa some shit listen to the trailblaze dog they're the most deranged citizens of european society they're just completely unhinged and horny horny all the time my bad no more blue humor no hey no raining in both of you looks like we operate in in the United States, Canada, Australia. Denmark? Are we in Scandinavia? United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, New Zealand,

Denmark. Germany? Mexico, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Das Niederlande Spain Japan France Austria Thailand Ecuador Switzerland Brazil South Korea Italy

Finland Czech Republic Singapore Senegal Estonia Russia India South Africa

Vietnam Poland Costa Rica Belize Some of these are bots Some of these are like Content farm Sure Nobody from Belize Listen Okay, some of these are bots. Some of these are like content farm. Yeah, yeah.

Nobody from Belize listens to this shit. Come on, man. Puerto Rico, Belgium. Or I could see Germany. Like, that's three Belize. That's three Belize, yeah. Argentina, Turkey, which is going to be critical when I get the hair transplant. Greece, Lebanon, Indonesia, Portugal.

Okay. Whoa, whoa, Indonesia, Portugal. Okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. 936 listeners in Israel. Okay, dude. That's fucking Elbit Systems. That's Elbit Systems, yeah. Then we got 917 plays in a country with just a blank flag. Yo, I told you, Galactic Europa.

That must be the Galactic listeners. Europa. And then after that, we got Kenya, Malaysia, Iceland, and Croatia. Okay. Well, we operate in, we're worldwide. We're worldwide. We're worldwide. Okay, so we can, at least for this one,

click our operation operates in more than 100 countries. So we can do that one. Please select the total size of your organization's workforce. Fewer than 1,000 employees. It goes up to over 100,000 employees. We can do fewer than 1,000. I think at least like we at least make like three people, you know, like intellectually, you know, physically. Yeah. know like intellectually you know physically yeah there's people there surely there can't be anyone

in their database that has three employees but operates in over a hundred countries they're like is this santa claus did santa claus yeah you got santa claus 12 reindeer and just a couple elves um please please select your organization's total annual revenue in dollars. I prefer not to say thank you. This one goes all the way up to greater than $75 billion. We're going to have to obviously click less than $500 million. We're feeling adventurous, brothers brothers let's do the 75 billion

i love yeah they're receiving this they're like okay so you have less than you make less than 500 million dollars you have three employees and operating over a hundred clearly you haven't killed enough children you are not ethical enough i know i know a fucking a scheme when i see one that's got all the classic hallmarks let's see which of the following functions would be part of onboarding or orientation for a new director um do y'all want a new director we do it information security risk management management finance so wait is the idea is that if you don't have any of this shit like that you are unethical because your company is not like a strengthening the bonds between you and the trust between you and the consumer yeah i mean essentially the more

so the more convoluted and complicated you are as a company the more walls you set up as a company that people the more alienated you are from society as a company is the more ethical you are pretty much and as long as your ceo hasn't done me too stuff you're good so it's like i mean if everyone is non-binary and there's no me too things going on you got enough black people you got enough black people you're you're ethical as fuck you gotta have one black guy with dread so he can wear his natural hairstyle in the workplace which is the most ethical thing that you could do and anybody else shows up trying that shit you politely but firmly inform them that we've met our quota. I'm sorry, we already have a bedreaded

individual. We're good on bedreadeds. Come back with a high-top fade or find someplace else to work. Oh, shit. What ongoing training and other awareness raising resources does your organization make available to third parties a lot of this is about third parties yeah like so this is so i guess

this is this questionnaire is for the internal workings this is not actually so where are the questions on i mean i guess how do you make a question on ethics i don't know none of this seems how does any related how is any of this related well it's weird because they would supply i mean okay i guess if you're talking about third party you're probably talking about contracting someone out which generally i feel like you would do in like a supply chain issue right or like logistics and so if you're doing that you're going to want to be employing a biz you know contractors that also employ ethical business practices. Like the guy, like the company that employed the guy who made monkeys work for a business. Okay, okay.

This is the question. Right, this is the question. It's like, okay, so on the questionnaire, like how many of your employees are black? How many of them are non-binary? How many of them are women? Et how many of them are uh women how etc etc is it ethical if like how many of your employees are literally not human animals who don't have any consent any will at all did not sign on board to do this shit i mean technically i mean you could say those human beings were coerced into doing this shit too so all this shit is unethical but you don't even share a language

with primates for example that's kind of wild to like you know like there's not even a common tongue between you you know i'm not even saying like you speak arabic and I speak English. I mean, we don't communicate like they do. And yet, some guy said, these guys are going to be great at fetching coconuts. You don't have to spend money to teach a human how to climb a tree. They already know how to climb trees instinctually. True. Good point.

I'm going to start calling out the beehives and anthills in my neighborhood i'm gonna start going to them and making them do ethics questionnaires yo there's actually a there's a company um in atlanta um i used to know a friend that worked for it where they employ goats to eat down your kudzu right and your vines and shit like that right but actually it's because you know the goats goats, like, they think they leave them there, like, for a couple hours, I don't know, overnight. They love kudzu.

They love it, man. But, I mean, I would think that's ethical, you know? The goats are eating. They're getting fed. See, we could definitely get... Does your organization publicly report on any of the following impact topics? That's capitalized impact. A capital I impact topics related to the communities where your organization operates and then there's stuff

like what does that mean it's uh aging elder issues animal testing and welfare donations charitable giving economic responsibility economic inclusion mental health i mean it's a long list veterans issues um agricultural sustainability we report on all that stuff on this on this program we have so we're ethical in that way yeah damn this is the awareness program i don't know if we would i don't know if we would pass the ethics test guys i don't think well i mean like i mean i think i think i think uh we wouldn't pass their ethics test um because uh we're not a malik like beings who uh just create doom and destruction upon humanity um but uh depends on who you ask if you look at my dm

sometimes i'm it's just, you guys are fucking idiots. You don't know anything. All you do is you make bad jokes that are offensive. True. This is true. Which I say, your wife loves my jokes. Your loving wife of many years loves the sound of my voice. I just want you to just remind you of that in case you forgot okay all right let me finish this article um so the survey also covers mental

health care for staff and the number of public company boards that directors sit on a methodology committee then analyzes the survey answers resulting in what salmon burn calls impenetrably an unverified ethics quotient. Then an Ethisphere review team compares documentation to survey answers and produces the verified ethics quotient, the ranking numbers used to decide who makes the list each year. As for how many applicants there are, that is a tightly held secret. We are so paranoid about anybody ever knowing who has raised their hand for consideration salmon bird said because as you can imagine if you raise your hand and don't make it

it's really sensitive okay like basically that uh uh but i mean if you know i guess so if you don't make it you're an unethical company essentially yeah that would be that would be wild if you you like make bert's Bees and you apply for this. I'm sure there's all kinds of fucked up, horrendous human atrocities, even in just the making of lip balm. Lip balm, yeah. But compared to the karmic debt from Elbit Systems or Leidos or something, you see those guys getting the most ethical company,

you got to be like, what the fuck? What are y'all doing? Oh, man. You also have to apply. There's like a $3,000 or $4,000 application fee to be considered. Oh, come on, dog. Of course there is. No free accolades anymore, are there?

You got to pay to get told that you're an unethical company this is so bizarre though um so the ethics quotient salmon bird said salmon burn said that the it weighted scoring system dedicates 20 of its scoring to quote-unquote impacts she said what we mean is the way in which you as an organization are impacting the communities in the world around you oh my god dude so they talk about a kill count is that what they want they want to kill count i guess but like it's again it's like how i guess they do want literal kill count they want you to get droney to catch to tally up the bodies i mean because when you say impact with a company like elbit right what impact do they have besides literally the impact when they drop bombs like you

know what i mean i mean what what what do they like what do they like have lemonade stands and communities and shit like that where they have like book fairs they have like breakfast programs and shit like what are you talking about what is impact what does impact the community speed i mean i know it means nothing at all but it's just it frustrates me i love impact i love the word impact it's one of the most i would say the impact was probably the most powerful word in the decade between 2012 and 2022 like everything was an impact this is going to have an impact yeah um i don't know um so anyways that that mean that pretty much gets i mean she basically salmon burn just basically talks a little bit more about like being lgbtqi friendly having good work culture uh you know that kind of stuff um i don't really know there is a question

on the questionnaire about how much of their workforce is unionized and it's like i don't really know. There is a question on the questionnaire about how much of their workforce is unionized. And it's like, I don't know what that means. Like, does that actually get you points? Is that a demerit? Or do you get points taken off or points added on for that? Exactly. Yeah. Hard to say.

My hunch is probably that's a demerit. Probably. I would have to guess. A demerit. Probably. I would have to guess. That you've created a discord in your company by allowing these filthy workers to unionize docked points. Next thing you know, the monkeys will unionize.

Exactly. Slippery slope. Slippery slope. Hey, I've seen the Planet of the Apes movies. I see where this goes to. Yeah. It's scary. That was actually a cautionary tale about monkey solidarity.

It really was, man. In the coconut fields. Oh, man. All right. Well, that about sums it up. Oh, yeah. So that was, like I said, that was written in The Nation by Justinallen uh can i can i just put a fine point on that too um i don't know i think that's i think that kind of sums up right uh this this sort of internal uh review right that uh uh that these

that these companies are uh concerned with and how they appear to be, you know. And I think it just puts a fine point on sort of the theme of the past few months when we've been sort of just the barbarity, the barbarism we've been seeing every day and being told, like, what's just not true, you know. And, again, man, Googles don't be evil. It just feels like we're living at a time where, again, Terrence, you say the contradictions. They're not really contradictions. They're more like these known truths you know it seems more like um that now we pull the wool off of our eyes you know and they're like no no like no it's still trust me

everything is still fine everything is still good look these are ethical companies and of course they're the most unethical companies in the world yeah i think they got to keep they got to keep the scam running you know you know one of the like we've talked about this a lot, but the hallmark of the Fordist system, the Fordist regime of accumulation that sort of held between the end of World War II and the mid-60s, early 70s, was the compact between labor and capital. Once that unraveled, it becomes pretty clear why they are now so interested in ethics and ethical business practices in the rise of HR departments and stuff. It's an easier way to solidify that compact between labor and capital without having to go the route of unionization and collective bargaining. And so, I mean, I don't know. and collective bargaining. And so, I mean, I don't know. It's just, you know, obviously I think ethics are deranged as a mode of philosophical inquiry.

It is probably a dead end in almost every instance. Unless, you know, unless it's like Mao. I feel like Mao probably got into some ethics stuff you know what i'm saying like like ethics that's not like not bourgeois and not also like um you know made to justify owning slaves and that kind of stuff yeah exactly well i mean i think i think this um this woman in the in the article said, right? Didn't she say something like, you know, ethics means something different to everyone, you know? Yeah. And it's just like, no, that's actually, that sounds like the antithesis of what ethics should be, right?

Right. When I think of ethics, I think of a foundation, right? Like truth, right? Right. The essence of something, you know what I mean? Not that, well, this company can decide that, okay, it's good to build bombs that kill children, but it's okay that it's a woman that's in charge of the company. So that means that it's ethical. I mean, that's just liberal bourgeois sort of morality.

Yeah. Well, I mean, as the world becomes more and more of a slaughterhouse, like at the border or in Gaza or whatever, like it becomes even more absurd and macabre that they would slap like ethics-approved stickers, right, on bombs and shit. It's just like, I mean, this is, I mean, it's beyond, I mean, it literally sounds like a parody that they would have wrote in, like, the 90s for, like, fucking Mad TV or something. Right?

You know what I mean? Like, just something that's. Well, I mean, I don't know, man. Now the, I don't know. It's like, now the absurd is commodifiable. You know what I mean? Now the absurd is in vogue, you know. Yeah.

Well, I have to think, andogue you know that's right well i have to think and that you know we closed out but i just want to say that like i have to think that these people really do believe this because i watched these youtube videos where they're talking about this they are the most brain dead like automaton people imaginable like they see no contradiction in this like they really have like drank the kool-aid i mean because here's the thing the ceos and the people that actually run these companies they're under no illusion about this whole ethics thing but there is a whole class of like managers professionals or whatever that like really do buy up this like just drink this fucking slop up and i saw it all the time in like the non-profit world

but like you know that like they're these people do they go to college to learn this stuff they go to college to become like diligent like order following uh psychopaths and they really do believe this like oh if we follow the rules and fill out this questionnaire and we'll do this like really complex mathematical equation we'll get what you know we'll ring the bell we'll be fucking ethical. Fucking deranged, man. Well, I mean, it's all about appearance, man, you know? Instead of the essence of things, you know what I mean? Hey, man, there's a philosophical

quandary for you. Essence versus appearance, bro. There you go, bro. Alright, well... In a similar note, I came up with a rap group we're gonna start. It's called Naughty by Nurture. Naughty by Nurture.

I like that. Yeah, I'm worried. Anyway, let's close out. That's where I get my blue humor from. Thanks, Mom. So speaking of being naughty by Nurture, which actually is apparently a clothing company on Etsy. You've been beaten to the punch, Tom.

Ah, damn it. Daylight and a dollar short. And speaking of substance versus essence, or essence versus appearance, there is an essence here. It's on Patreon.com. It's our premium content. We release an episode every week that is a essence here. It's on patrion.com. It's our, uh, premium content. We release an episode every week. That is a premium episode.

And we would like you to please go sign up for the Patreon. And so that you can receive that premium episode. Uh, it is P A T R E O N.com slash trail, Billy workers party. The link is in the show notes. Please go follow it and subscribe. We would like your patronage.

If you would be so kind. Alright. Well, so we will see you over there at the Patreon this weekend. And until then, we will see you later.

Bye. Peace out.