Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - This Week in Stupid (17⧸11⧸2014)

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Nov. 17, 2014 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

26:13

This Week in Stupid (17⧸11⧸2014)

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	Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 16th of November 2014.
	This week has been absolutely bountiful.
	Do you think that lone adults should be banned from tourist attractions aimed at children?
	This is actually a question that Bristol is currently asking itself.
	And Bristol is asking itself this question, because birdwatcher Matthew Richards was turned away from a Puxton park near Bristol when he was told that adults without children were barred because of fears about paedophiles.
	I mean he claims to have visited this park with three quote-unquote grandchildren but wanted to return for another look at the Falconry display which is probably pedophile code for steal three more children.
	Alistair Mead, the managing director of the centre, said he's stunned by the reaction to the news but has agreed to take a look at the park's admission policy.
	Alistair, why are you agreeing to take a look at the park's admission policy?
	Why aren't you saying, no, he's just a guy who's come here for the Falconry display.
	He's a birdwatcher.
	This is a Falconry display.
	I have no reason whatsoever to think that this man is a paedophile and there is no reason to deny him admission.
	He said we would rather be overzealous when unaccompanied adults visit us armed with cameras than put children at any potential risk.
	Even schools follow similar policies with regards to the photography of children and frankly it's fucking ridiculous there because what you're saying is that Google is a threat to children because you can access pictures of children through it.
	Seriously these idiots have turned this perfectly nice 54 year old grandfather into a figure of suspicion because he likes falconry.
	Luckily this doesn't represent the will of the general public who can see through this complete and utter nonsense.
	But more on that later.
	Alex from Target, teenager who went viral for his good looks is now receiving death threats.
	Alex shot to fame when his picture was tweeted by British Girl and has been retweeted and favourited thousands of times.
	He gained over half a million Twitter followers in one day and tweeted Am I famous now? in his disbelief at his newfound situation.
	Just to be clear, this isn't really going to be 500,000 male Twitter followers, is it?
	And now this poor lad is afraid to leave the house.
	I've been in the house the entire time.
	I'm kind of scared to go in public, he says, describing the disruption he's experienced to everyday life, which in which he's been chased by teenage girls and accosted in the street for selfies with fans.
	Seriously, what kind of sense does this make?
	I mean, what kind of fucking world do we live in where this happens?
	And since this photo went viral, he's received death threats on social media and in private messages.
	This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
	I mean, some kid who's doing his job gets his photo taken and suddenly he can't go out in public without people accosting him in the street and people are sending him threats probably through jealousy.
	And what most annoys me about this is how willfully complicit all of these fucking people who are doing this to this poor lad are.
	They're just quite happily, oh my god, I find this guy attractive, so I don't care what the impact on his life's going to be, I'm going to do this because I find this fun.
	How is this considered socially acceptable to the people doing it?
	But the worst people involved in all of this are a marketing agency called Breaker, because they attempted to take credit for Alex's leap to fame.
	The company's chief executive, Dil Domine Jacob Leonards, wrote a LinkedIn post claiming that the meme started out as a social experiment to test the power of fangirls.
	Although this has apparently been refuted by BuzzFeed, of all people.
	It's a fucking sorry state of affairs the Western world finds itself in, doesn't it?
	What happened to patriarchy for Christ's sake?
	And the outrage never stops because SS Christmas decorations on Czech auction site spark outrage.
	My god, Czech Republic, don't go down this road where outrage is something that people have to give a shit about.
	As the holiday season quickly approaches, some fancy and authentic Nazi Christmas decorations have been posted to a Czech auction site.
	I offered sell Christmas decorations SS troops.
	All in original condition.
	Undamaged.
	This is a blown ornament.
	Ornaments are the original colours in top condition slightly worn with age.
	This is a rare piece, the user known as Anti95 says on the website.
	The seller announced that the decorations were used by SS units over 70 years ago.
	It's a strange thing to imagine an SS unit having a Christmas celebration, isn't it?
	But I think it's actually really important recently, especially after Geordie Tate's absurd moral meltdown over Gamergate recently.
	To show that, look, both sides of any conflict still involve human beings.
	And just because you're having an emotional reaction to this at the moment, doesn't mean that they stop being human beings.
	And it doesn't mean that in the future, people aren't going to want to have relics from the time.
	And I say this because a call to have the items destroyed regardless of their historical value has been included in the article.
	No!
	That is the most monstrous kind of thinking.
	That's the same reason the Spanish burned the Mayan codices.
	The Nazis are a part of history.
	This is a historical artifact.
	Frankly, it's quite a beautiful historical artifact as well.
	Just because one user's granddad would cry if he saw this, is no reason to treat these as if they are somehow modern day Nazi propaganda and someone is actually advocating for a return to national socialism.
	That's fucking stupid.
	And I have to say this, because the seller maintains that the set is solely for collecting purposes and expresses his non-allegiance to any ideology suppressing human rights or a movement which supports national, racial, or class hatred.
	Why would he have to state that?
	Do they think there is some remnant of the Nazi regime hiding out in Czechoslovakia over the last 70 fucking years?
	But those ornaments aren't the only Nazi-friendly pieces of memorabilia on the website.
	Nazi friendly.
	What are you talking about?
	It is a historical artifact.
	All of these things that you are disparaging as Nazi-friendly are historical artefacts that historians in the future will really want to have hold of.
	Because they will want to be able to as accurately as possible reconstruct the situation that's gone on.
	Nobody is in favour of what the Nazis have done, but that doesn't mean that anyone has to destroy or decry anything that happens to have been part of Nazi Germany.
	That's ridiculous.
	Also, this was going to be my Christmas present to Ian Miles Chung, and now I have to think of something else.
	In gaming news, Sweden's got a cool idea for changing sexist gaming culture.
	I really look forward to what Sweden has to say about this.
	Gender inequality in gaming is a real and pervasive issue, and in case you don't believe us, we suggest you check out a little thing called Gamergate.
	Not a little thing called Not Your Shield, though, because that might actually screw up this lie.
	But games industry officials in Sweden have recently hit upon a strategy they will think will be a huge win for fighting sexism in video games within the country.
	Let me guess, it involves giving stacks of cash to someone to advance feminism.
	The organisation Deterspiel Brachen that represents games in the public received a large grant by the Swedish government over $36,000 of taxpayer money to work with games developers and look at the way games portray female characters.
	Presumably because Anita Sarkesian did such a bad job of it.
	Their idea is to put labels on games to indicate whether or not they promote gender equality.
	Given that Sweden has feminist film ratings in their cinemas, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that they'd suggest this, I'm just disappointed in their lack of creativity.
	Either all games would come with a label, or studios that promote gender equality would be awarded with some kind of certificate, which would actually be a marvellous idea, and certainly enable me to choose who exactly I want to support.
	The company won't just look at the contents of games and consider how to make them more gender equitable, it will also look at the way that game studios promotes diversity and equality within the workforce.
	That's important, given that a recent study showed that 22% of the game industry workforce worldwide was made up of women, while now 52% of gamers are women.
	Which is great, because now that I'm a minority, I get to say that my voice is more important than other people's.
	I rather need to start practicing, actually.
	Don't you oppress me, you shitlord.
	Sexual harassment and gossip, but no accusers, as Gomeshi effect engulfs Montreal University.
	What's the Gomeshi effect, you ask?
	Well, it's being termed that because of a man named Gian Gomeshi, a former Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio host, because of allegations of sexual harassment and abuse.
	He claims they're not true, and there seem to be very few ways of being able to prove that they are, because the alleged criminal activity is being reported so long after the fact.
	And the problem with this is because it's got severe implications for the legal system.
	As a criminal defense lawyer, I have concerns about the presumption of innocence all the time, says News Talk 101 legal analyst Edward Prudshey.
	He said, what the system is most afraid of is the wrongful conviction of an innocent person.
	Which is completely understandable because that in itself would be deeply immoral.
	He says, better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man should suffer.
	It's that ancient British saying that our system is predicated on.
	And I don't know if that's necessarily true anymore.
	Which leads me to the conclude that the Gomeshi effect is the description of the presumption of guilt when a man is accused of sexual crime.
	Which is what leads us back to this article where it says, the sticker plastered over professors' doors last week left little doubt that the three men were accused of something reprehensible.
	No to rape culture, break the silence, the stickers read.
	Harassment touching voyeurism assault.
	Zero tolerance.
	The shaming of the University of Quebec and Montreal Humanities professors continued online, where a student association and campus feminist groups shared photos of the defaced doors in which targets' names were clearly visible.
	No formal complaints have been made against the professors or have been filed with the university, so they remain in the dark about what they are alleged to have done.
	There was a sticker denouncing sexism, harassment, and if you carefully study Facebook statuses, opposed to the effect that if they got the stickers, they must have deserved it, one of the professors wrote in an email on Thursday, but there's not even been an anonymous accusation of harassment.
	Strange indeed how things are developing.
	Well, it probably does sound strange to someone who is unfamiliar with modern feminism.
	I don't know who these professors are, so I can't research what they've done in their academic careers, but I'm guessing that they have at some point in time been vocal about how feminism is going mad.
	And some crazy feminists have taken it upon themselves to dole out some kind of punishment for it.
	Presumably because they think he supports rape culture.
	Some at the university are cheering the action as evidence of a realignment of the traditional power structure.
	What the fuck are you talking about?
	Presumption of innocence is nothing to do with any power structure.
	It's a way of making sure that each citizen is protected from wrongful imprisonment.
	It's the most scientific way we have of conducting legal business.
	It's the way we can be most sure we are putting away the people who deserve to be put away.
	You fucking savages.
	It's crucial that the assailants and harassers who have positions of authority within the university and admit their assaulting and harassing behaviour towards women's students.
	The Association of Humanities Students, known by its French acronym AFECH, wrote in a Facebook post justifying its publication of the photos.
	We unreservedly support women's students in humanities throughout the university as well as their right to denounce publicly.
	Solidarity.
	You are fucking mental.
	What have these men done, you fucking crazies?
	This is the full Macintosh effect, ladies and gentlemen, where nothing has happened, nothing has gone wrong, no one's even being accused of anything, but suddenly someone has left fucking reality and decided that these professors are now guilty and need to be publicly shamed because the power structure just won't deal with them.
	Fucking lunatics.
	The campaign has sparked a debate on the downtown campus, known for its radical politics.
	Shouldn't that be stopped then?
	Shouldn't it be a concern that you have organisations in your campuses that are breeding radicals?
	A number of commenters on the AFESH Facebook page accused the association of participating in a witch hunt, because it is.
	What you have done is just bullying and harassment, one graduate wrote, except that as usual, you are so convinced of having the truth that you do not question anything.
	Horrible.
	Absolutely true.
	But retards have said that women are left with no other choice because the university's official complaints procedure seldom yields results.
	Possibly because you're not actually complaining about anything.
	You haven't approached them with an accusation even.
	Let alone any way of method of proving it or it being disproven.
	Which is presumably why you haven't levelled one.
	An anti-sexism collective composed of university students, employees and teachers posted a testimonial on Thursday from an anonymous former student who said she and many others never complained of harassment and assaults they have experienced.
	Bollocks.
	I just don't believe you.
	I just don't believe that these would come into the category of harassment and assaults in anyone else's book other than a crazy radical feminist student from Canada.
	Maybe in San Francisco, but certainly not anywhere else.
	Right, maybe Sweden too.
	The university administration has denounced what it calls acts of intimidation towards faculty members.
	It met Apech representatives on Monday to warn them that they could face a defamation suit for publishing the photos, identifying the three professors, but the association refuses to take the pictures down because they know they're right.
	You're not listening and believing.
	Meanwhile, the targeted professors have filed complaints claiming they're the victims of harassment as a result of the vandalism of their workplace and the distribution of the photos.
	They are the victims of harassment, actually.
	This is a quite a clear-cut case where feminists are harassing these professors.
	The director of the university's media relations office said that anyone who feels she has been the victim of harassment, she, not they, have been the victim of harassment, should file an official complaint rather than resort to sneaky tactics.
	It is surprising.
	If it was young university students who did this, and without a doubt it was, they acted in such a way.
	It's contrary to the values of a university.
	Well, there's a mistake, because you are actively allowing the propagation of radical feminist ideology in your universities.
	Is it any wonder that this has occurred?
	I'm surprised this didn't occur sooner.
	This behaviour is indeed contrary to a university's values, but it's not surprising that some at the University of Quebec and Montreal consider it legitimate.
	This is, after all, the school where masked students barged into classes of students who had voted against striking during the 2012 tuition protests.
	They jumped on desks, flicked lights on and off, and scrolled graffiti all in defiance of a court injunction ordering that the classes not be disrupted.
	Miss Disrochias was unable to say Thursday whether any of the students had been sanctioned for these actions, and I'm sure they won't.
	I'm sure that they will get a lot of community protection from the consequences that they actually deserve, which I would have thought would have been expulsion from the university.
	But what do I know?
	I'm a normal person.
	I didn't go to academia and get my brain fried in a gender studies course.
	And I didn't take communication, so I don't know.
	So I don't know how to propagandise everyone with Edward Bonay's sneaky, dirty tricks.
	And we finally come to Shirtgate.
	I presume you're all familiar with this, but I'll give you a quick recap just in case you're not.
	I don't care if you landed a spacecraft on a comet, your shirt is sexist and ostracizing.
	That's one small step for man, three steps back for humankind.
	Posted on the verge.
	Yesterday, the European Space Agency landed a spacecraft on a comet, a powerful step forward for humanity and science alike.
	However, slightly before the big moment, coverage of the event reminded us how much progress still remains to be accomplished back on Earth.
	A number of the scientists involved in this incredible project were interviewed in the hours leading up to the contact by Nature news stream.
	One of those Rosetta scientists was Matt Taylor, who chose to dress for this special occasion in a bowling shirt covered in scantily clad characters of sexy women in provocative poses.
	Yes, this is indeed ostracizing, and sexist shirts like this are really holding back women in science.
	The Verge went on to say that no one knows why Taylor chose to wear that shirt on television during a massive scientific mission.
	Actually, Verge, I think you can tell us, can't you?
	Because from what they can tell, a woman who goes by the name of Ellie Preisman on Twitter made the shirt for him and is just as bewildered as he that anyone might be upset about her creation.
	I get the feeling that STEM and humanities don't really spend a lot of time with each other, because if they did, she would be well aware of just how offensive that shirt would have been to crazy radical feminists.
	In a move that was branded deeply pathetic by the rest of humanity, The Verge goes on to say that this is the sort of casual misogyny that stops women from entering certain scientific fields.
	I'm not making this up.
	They are literally that fucking stupid.
	They see a poster of greased up women in a colleague's office and they know they aren't respected.
	Why?
	Are they on the poster?
	They hear comments about bitches while out in a bar with fellow science students.
	About people who are currently being bitches, apparently, and they decide to change majors.
	Really, is that what scares them off?
	Is it?
	I think these delicate petals are probably not prepared for the rigours of peer review, which is probably why so many feminists are against the concept.
	And these are the women who make it that far.
	Those are the few who persevered, even though they were discouraged from pursuing degrees in physics, chemistry, and math throughout high school, with all of those affirmative action programs.
	These are the women who forged on, despite the fact they were told by elementary school classmates and the media at large that girls who like science are nerdy and unattractive.
	Well, frankly, that's what it says to boys about being scientists as well, and they do it anyway, so maybe being nerdy and unattractive really isn't a big deal for these people.
	This is the climate that women who dream of working at NASA or the ESA come up against every single day.
	This shirt is representative of all of that, and the ESA has yet to issue a statement or apologise for it.
	Well, fuck.
	I guess Matt Taylor deserved all that abuse that he received afterwards.
	He's clearly some kind of monster who would never, ever make any kind of public apology for offending so many people.
	wait a minute.
	The shirt I wore this week I made a big mistake and I've offended many people and I'm very sorry about this.
	Oh well done you bullying fucking harpies.
	Reducing a great man to tears just because you're slightly offended about his shirt.
	Fuck your offense.
	This is a great man.
	He has accomplished great things for the human race as a whole.
	No one else in all of history has landed a man-made object on a fucking comet.
	And you shit-flinging monkeys had to co-opt this event for your own agenda.
	This is something for humanity to celebrate.
	This is a great step forward.
	This is not about you and your fucking gender identity politics bullshit.
	And so it's actually with a lot of pride that I can say that one of my patrons and ardent Gamergate supporter Canon S. Julie, unbeknownst to me, started an Indiegogo project for Matt Taylor so they could buy Dr. Taylor a gift.
	A personal thank you for doing something so scientifically amazing and to give our sympathy from people who have been bullied by these feminist nutjobs.
	The plan is to buy him something called an astronomical watch, which I'd never heard of before seeing this.
	And I only saw this just before recording this video, so my knowledge of this is quite sketchy.
	But linking from the information provided, these things look awesome.
	And they're fucking expensive.
	This one's actually the most expensive one I could see.
	$150,000.
	But the thing is, it actually has moon dust in it.
	I don't know Dr. Taylor myself, so I have no idea what his tastes are, but I can't help but think that given his line of work, he might actually consider an astronomical watch a really kind gift.
	Luckily, this is really the upper limit of these watches.
	Some of them start at about three grand upwards.
	And someone tweeted the project to Richard Dawkins, who retweeted it.
	Which is why the project is almost three times more funded than it needed to be.
	And even this was met by some kind of backlash from the crazy feminists at Freethought Blogs.
	For his abuse, it's nice to see that Richard Dawkins still has compassion for his fellow human beings.
	At least, after yesterday, we might have thought that he simply didn't know what that might be.
	But happily, we would be wrong.
	He has compassion.
	He has compassion for people he takes to have been abused by feminists.
	Oh, yes, some moron at Freethought Blogs is actually going to infer that this isn't really abuse because it's coming from feminists.
	And again, for his abuse.
	Yes, he was abused by feminists to the point where he broke down on TV while apologising to the psychotic Harrodons.
	Because I mean, this is not about clothing.
	This is about sexist depictions of women in extremely inappropriate place and the impact it has on women to be bombarded with images like this, even at work and in the classroom.
	God, you're an ass.
	Says Jackie, one of the moronic ideologues at Freethought Blogs.
	It's no wonder that they call Gamergate a culture war, because they are a culture that is at war with everything.
	Everything and anyone could be subject to the insane depredations of the feminist ideology.
	Finally, Jezebel chipped in with, woman gets death threats for tweeting about disliking a dude's shirt.
	Yeah, good try, Jezebel.
	Participation ribbons all around.
	You're absolute morons and everyone knows it.
	But nobody's surprised because you're owned by Gorka.
	So given this context, when Time magazine asks which words should be banned in 2015 and posts a relatively innocuous looking list of catchphrases and colloquialisms, it should come as no real surprise that feminist appears on that list.
	The rationale being you have nothing against feminism itself, but when did it become a thing that every celebrity had to state their position on whether this word applies to them, like some politician declaring a party.
	The word feminist won this poll in a fucking landslide.
	I would show you the results of the poll, but Time magazine have actually removed it from the website.
	But when I first saw it, it was at a staggering 45%, which given the number of potential options is colossal, beating out the nearest contender by about 30%.
	As you can imagine, feminists on the internet were outraged and did what feminists do best, cyber mobbing people who disagree with them and bullying Time magazine into retracting the poll and apologising for the use of the word feminist despite massive public support for the idea.
	This is how entrenched feminism is and how devoted its ideologues.
	But the thing is it also shows that the public knows what feminism is.
	There's a reason that Emma Watson was in front of the UN saying feminism is often conflated with man-hating.
	Everyone knows.
	Everyone is sick of your bullshit.
	Everyone thinks that feminism should be over.
	And nobody thinks this more than a pastebin I was sent, probably from 4chan or something like that, that I'm going to leave in the description because it's pretty fucking hilarious.
	I'll read you the first couple of paragraphs and I strongly recommend you read the rest.
	It's really good.
	Feminists don't have to be your audience.
	Feminists are over.
	I never said I was a feminist culture writer, but lately I feel I need to say something.
	Feminist culture as we know it is kind of embarrassing.
	It's not even culture.
	It's whining about things, reporting memes and in-jokes repeatedly, and it's getting mad on the internet.
	It's young women writing on Tumblr with blue-purple hair and collecting non-binary pronouns, blogging passionately for hours around the world to cry about all the things that feminists want them to hear, to find out whether they should feel offended or not.
	They don't know how to dress or behave.
	You browse these listless posts and often catch the expressions of people who don't quite know why they themselves are writing there.
	Feminist culture is a petri dish of people who know so little about human interaction and professional life works that they can concoct online wars about social justice or gender journalism ethics straight-faced and cause genuine human consequences.

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