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March 8, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
35:41
This Week in Stupid (08⧸03⧸2015)
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Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 8th of March 2015.
And this week I'm just throwing my hands up and asking what the fuck is wrong with everyone.
Take for example Exhibite A. Netanyahu's address to Congress that made him look like an unhinged lunatic.
I'm just going to go through the first few paragraphs of this speech because it is so weird.
And I should go through the rest really, but I'm not going to to save time.
I mean, in the beginning of his speech he says, I deeply regret that some perceive my being here as political.
What, the Prime Minister of Israel giving a speech to the US Congress?
Don't worry about it.
Why would anyone think that that was political?
I mean, obviously he was there to talk about Iran's quest for nuclear weapons, but it's not that it's political that he's there.
Obviously he brings out every clichéd Netanyahuism in the book.
We are an ancient people.
In our nearly 4,000 years of history, many have tried repeatedly to destroy the Jewish people.
Ah, yes.
Tomorrow night will be the Jewish holiday of Purim.
We'll read the book of Esther of a powerful Persian viceroy named Haman, who plotted to destroy the Jewish people some 2,500 years ago.
Yes, that's a very fucking relevant, isn't it?
Netanyahu.
But the question is why are you not talking about that other powerful Persian person who in fact released the Jewish people from the yoke of the Babylonians and is unconditionally praised in Jewish sources?
And you don't even mention that the story from the book of Esther was by a figure called Haman, who was apparently a descendant of Agag, the king of the Amalekites, a people who were wiped out by King Saul and David and the Israelites.
So already Netanyahu's speech is just nothing but propagandistic bullshit.
But obviously he's talking about Ayatollah Khomeini, who I think might actually have died today.
But I can't confirm that.
So anyway, he apparently tweets that Israel must be annihilated.
You know, in Iran, there isn't exactly free internet.
I don't give a fuck, mate.
I just don't give a fuck what anyone tweets.
It's become deeply apparent that tweeting things means very fucking little.
Honestly, the idea is just hilarious, really.
The idea that this 79-year-old, I think, radical Islamic cleric is able to use Twitter and tweet in English.
It's just fucking brilliant.
I mean, I'm sure that he's just on Twitter, or was on Twitter, all fucking day.
You know, completely, completely savvy use of hashtags, everything, just perfect English.
This is not a problem for Iran's supreme leader.
But what's even funnier about this is that Netanyahu doesn't even advocate for a war.
He says, we recommend neither a classical war by the army of Muslim countries nor to throw the migrated Jews at sea and certainly not an arbitration by UN or other international organizations.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the Iranians are full of shit as much as anyone else.
But Netanyahu seems to be having paranoid delusions.
In the Middle East, Iran now dominates four Arab capitals, dominates them.
Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sana'a.
As if the Persian Empire is being reformed by the Iranians as we speak.
And then, so at the time when many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations.
Or is it?
I mean, or is it doing exactly what the West, what the Russians, what the Chinese, what everyone does?
After reading this, I can only assume that Netanyahu has just finished watching 300, where he's like, we must all stand together to stop Iran's march of conquest, subjugation, and terror.
Yeah, they've brought their war elephants.
Jesus fucking Christ, man.
The idea that you may be a bit full of shit has never occurred to you, has it?
Get a fucking grip!
But if it's not a globalist Iranian conspiracy, it's a globalist Zionist conspiracy.
State Department tweets speech by cleric who blames unrest on global Zionist conspiracy.
Cleric unrest due to new global colonialism allied to world zionism the state department's counterterrorism office is facing this the state department Is facing pushback after promoting recent remarks by a muslim cleric who blamed regional unrest In the middle east on what he called a conspiracy by a new global colonialism allied to world zionism Why are you tweeting this, State Department?
What good did you think was going to come of it?
Or is this just a novel way of announcing to the world that you have recently hired Alex Jones?
The State Department's official anti-terrorism Twitter account last week tweeted out remarks made by a leading Muslim cleric who, in a speech made at Mecca, linked terrorism by the Islamic State to a plot by supporters of Israel around the world.
Oh yeah, I don't see how that could have gone wrong.
So naturally, after blaming the unrest on the conspiracy by new global colonialism allied to world Zionism, he went on to say that the plot has exploited confessional tension in the conflict hit Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya.
The Iranian Supreme Leader, Khomeini, communicated the same view on Monday when he tweeted that all the Western world's problems stemmed from Zionist dominion over governments.
And then Netanyahu goes and speaks to Congress, telling everyone that there is some sort of Iranian New World Order plot as well.
I'm starting to think that not only are both sides completely full of shit, but they're also complete morons as well.
But what annoys me most about this is that they take us for bigger fools than they are.
But the thing is, I mean, State Department Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Haft said pretty much the same thing, so maybe we are.
And what annoys me the most about this is that she suggested that Islamic State terrorists could be lured away from the jihadi group with better paying job opportunities.
I mean, that might work.
But I don't think it's a very good idea to send the message that if you go off to be a jihadi terrorist, we're going to reward you with a cushy job.
Believe it or not, it's probably going to have the same sort of effect as the English paying off the Vikings had.
The worst part is this isn't the first time this has happened.
The State Department's Counterterrorism Bureau was forced to apologise in May for promoting a controversial cleric who runs a group that backed Hamas and endorsed a fatwa authorising the murder of US soldiers in Iraq.
I mean, I just, I, what is going on?
What?
What idiots are working in this department?
You know what?
I'm just going to tweet an article by a radical cleric.
Yeah, no, no, it's just a transcript of his speech where he calls for death to America and the beheading of US soldiers.
So yeah, but you know that we're the US State Department, don't you?
Yeah, but no, it'd be fine, it'd be fine.
It'd be okay.
Seriously, this whole thing is just stupid.
It's just, just, can we not give either of them airtime, please?
I'm not interested in hearing the paranoid ravings of radical Iranian clerics any more than I'm interested in hearing the paranoid ravings of radical Israeli prime ministers.
Since we're on the subject of the Middle East, Save the Children, sorry about Tony Blair award.
So you fucking should be.
Save the Children has apologised for any offense caused by his decision to give Tony Blair a global legacy award.
The charity's chief executive, Justin Forsyth, said he was sorry it had upset so many people, and that's not really what we do at Save the Children, unless we give a war criminal a legacy award.
That's just marvellous.
In other news, Jane Fonda says that male domination of the world has been wounded.
I don't know what she means there, but I'm pretty sure she's going to start using the P-word.
The male power structure that has dominated the world for centuries has been wounded, but there's nothing more dangerous than a wounded beast, says Jane Fonder, animal wrangler extraordinaire, who has apparently gone full feminist, and says, The most intractable problem that humanity faces is the problem of patriarchy, which she partly blames for the rise in terrorism and the destruction of the environment.
That is incredibly level-headed, and like all big game hunters, Jane Fonda knows her prey.
She said that patriarchy is very entrenched, which made it difficult for women fighting for real equality to challenge it, although she says women have made inroads.
Shortly before she started going on about a wascally wabbit, she actually says, and I mean she actually says this, male power is wounded now, but there's nothing more dangerous than a wounded beast thrashing about, flailing its tail with the barbs on, and lots of people are getting hurt badly.
I can only imagine what kind of nightmare beast the patriarchy is.
Fonda is a longtime supporter of the group Equality Now, and says just over half the laws it highlighted in 1999 have been revised, appealed or amended, but there's no excuse for less than 100%.
And I agree, I think that the laws should be changed so that there's no discrimination based on gender.
At all.
And she says changing laws is a huge step forward and helps empower victims.
It's weirdly specific.
But to achieve equality, many other things are needed as well.
Apparently you need women elected to office.
You need movements in the streets.
You need social media.
You need every single form of social protest and speaking truth to power that's possible.
Okay, I just want to have a quick look at a few of those.
I mean, you need women elected to office.
A, we have women elected to office.
But if women aren't elected to office, what are we going to do?
I assume we're just going to tell people that they're voting wrong and make them do it again until they get it right.
We have social media and movements in the streets and every single form of protest and speaking truth to power.
We have all of that.
We have freedom of speech, we have freedom of expression, freedom to protest.
We have all of these things.
She goes on to say that a woman leader must lead as a woman and not as a man in skirts, who thinks she needs to prove she's not weak.
Her value is to bring her woman-ness to her leadership style, which means empathy, compassion, and someone whose head and heart are not bifurcated.
Yes, I suppose that's all well and good, but I don't know if you've noticed, but the heads of state of Iran and Israel are paranoid conspiracy nuts.
And now you, a paranoid conspiracy nut, are suggesting we hire paranoid conspiracy nuts to office based on their fucking gender.
You haven't mentioned any fucking policies, which is what I would personally vote for.
I mean, I guess this is what they're talking about.
Fewer women run big companies than men named John.
I'm sure there are good reasons for this, but this, in their minds, is the work of the patriarchy, the magical, all-controlling hand of the patriarchy that makes women think, you know, I'd rather have a family, instead of continuing to work hour after hour after hour to make their company a big company, or to get to the top of an existing big company.
So anyway, apparently fewer large companies are run by women than by men named John, a sure indicator that the glass ceiling remains firmly in place in corporate America.
No, this is a sure indicator that there is no glass ceiling, because if there are any companies run by women, this defeats the concept of a glass ceiling, which is an invisible barrier preventing women from going past it.
So among the chief executives of 1500 firms, for each woman, there are four men named John, Robert, William or James.
You know, remarkably common English names in the Western English-speaking world.
We're calling this pointless ratio the glass ceiling index.
An index value above one means that Jim, Bob's, Jackson Jills combined outnumber the total number of women, including every woman's name from Abby Tesara.
Well, yes, you are saying women as a whole.
And so they've got this graph that's how thick is the glass ceiling.
So I mean, for example, for the US population, they have 0.12 James Roberts, Johns or Williams for every woman.
In Senate Democrats, 0.29.
In House Democrats, 0.31.
In say corporate boards, 1.03, professors of economics, 1.12.
House Republicans, 1.36.
But chief executive officers, 4.0.
That must be the patriarchy at work.
I mean, this is clearly the patriarchy privileging the names John Robert, John or William because they belong to men.
It's not because these people have a common name and happen to work very hard for a very long and committed period of their life.
And it's not because women just happen to have chosen different jobs.
I mean, for example, if a woman does gender studies at university, she is completely entitled to be the CEO of a company because she has a vagina and apparently needs to be protected from her own poor choices.
Obviously, this is all retarded.
And frankly, I find it to be the stupidest way to measure any kind of inequality.
Just have men to women ratios, you morons.
Coming back to the UK, if you can believe it, a lot of people in Scotland are white and historically have been white for quite some time.
But that doesn't matter Glasgow uni because they're going to build diversity with new names.
Glasgow University names to reflect more than just dead white men.
So Glasgow University is to rename its buildings on its campus after women and people from ethnic minorities after campaigners complained they only honoured dead white men.
Not that women and ethnic minorities were en masse complaining, it's campaigners complaining.
First idiot Nicola Sturgeon has given her support to the controversial move and could even find herself celebrated at her alma mater.
My goodness, I cannot believe that someone who is supporting these diversity initiatives is personally going to benefit from them.
What a fucking coincidence.
The move means that buildings that are dedicated to legendary innovators such as James Watt and Adam Smith could be renamed in favour of women's rights activists and black academics.
I suppose Glasgow University is trying to become Britain's very own little Swedish colony.
The changes have been championed by the University Student Representative Council, which claims that the existing building names reinforce sexism and inequality.
You know, I say lettund because they are so pathetic and weak that sexism and inequality are reinforced against them by building names.
I mean maybe it's just Scottish people who have got this problem because in Swindon for example we've got a building called Watt Tyler House.
There is not a single fucking pleb in Swindon who could tell you who Watt Tyler was.
Let alone even accurately identify Watt Tyler as being a human being.
They just wouldn't understand what you were asking them.
So there is simply no way that the sexism of this being called Watt Tyler House is going to affect them on any kind of level.
But it turns out people in Scotland are complete fucking pussies and if they can identify someone's name on a building as being male, they're like, you know, fuck it.
Fuck it.
I had dreams of being an architect.
I was going to be a designer.
I was going to build great things.
I was going to do advanced mathematics.
I was going to be a quantum physicist.
I was going to revolutionise the world.
But now, I'm going to be a dropout.
Of course, as Scotland's first female minister, the nationalist leader Nicola Sturgeon could find her name being the inspirational name that helps young girls not be complete fucking dropouts, because she's going to be officially recognised by her old university as part of the drive.
What, that is just incredible.
No bias at all.
Nicola, do you think that we should name a building after you?
Well, I mean, we do need more diversity.
In fact, speaking of diversity, it turns out that eating three square meals a day is racist.
Why you should stop eating breakfast, lunch and dinner?
Dogmatic adherence to meal times is anti-science, racist and might actually be making you sick.
So apparently the idea of three meals a day originates really from the working European peasant.
And when said peasants went to the new world, they observed that the eating schedule of native tribes was less rigid.
The volume and timing of their eating varied with the seasons.
The Europeans took this as evidence that the natives were uncivilised because civilized people ate properly and boundaried their eating, thus differentiating themselves from the animal kingdom where grazing is the norm.
And apparently, the Europeans also watched the tribes eat as a form of entertainment, and thus was the world before television.
So that's how it's racist.
And people were apparently still eating these giant country breakfasts after they left the farms and went into the cities and formed sedentary lifestyles.
And soon, doctors reported that more of their patients were suffering from indigestion.
So that's what was making you sick.
Indigestion.
I can only assume this exists as an exercise in progressives looking like idiots, because they say in their own article that this whole thing's pointless bullshit.
Apparently, according to a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition, where one group ate three meals a day while another ate six with the same total daily calories, researchers found no weight or hormonal differences between the groups.
It made no fucking difference.
So why are you writing a fucking article encouraging us to drop three meals a day?
It's who cares?
This really just seems to be an excuse to call someone racist.
There's something about this next story I particularly like though.
And it's not just because it has Cheryl Sandberg in it.
NBA teams up with Sheryl Sandberg to lean in for women and equality.
This is just, this is going to be wonderful.
The NBA produced a public service announcement highlighting Sandberg's campaign, hashtag lean in together.
Because apparently lean in for just women alone didn't work, for whatever reason.
Featuring stars from the NBA and WNBA.
Sandberg says she's thrilled with the partnership and lauded the NBA for recognizing that men should not just be the center of the court, they should be the center of the fight for equality.
That's marginalising women, Cheryl.
You are awful, awful at this equality thing.
So what was this all about?
Well, it was of course about what men can do for strong empowered women who don't need no man, but do in fact need a man.
Sandberg emphasises there are benefits for men as well, saying, equality is good for men too.
When men support women at work, they outperform their peers.
Who are men, presumably, because women aren't outperforming their peers who are women, they'd be in the woman category, wouldn't they?
When men are 50-50 partners at home, their relationships are stronger and they have more sex.
And when they're active fathers, their kids are healthier, happier and more successful.
I tell men, don't buy flowers, do laundry.
I love how this is literally a huge effort on behalf of men's wives and girlfriends who are just clearly tired of nagging.
You know, can you nag them for us?
We're so tired of nagging them.
It's just not working.
No, it's never going to fucking work.
You are the ones who are bothered about housework.
We are the ones who are not bothered about housework, but conversely, we're bothered about money.
And so, lo and behold, men earn more money, women do more housework, because these are the things that each group happens to care about.
By doing their share of the household chores, Sandberg says that men are subliminally empowering their daughters.
And she cites a study that shows by the age of 14, girls have broader career aspirations if they live in households where fathers are actively involved in chores.
But I'm sure that correlation absolutely implies causation in these cases.
No amount of if you can do anything dear is actually as important as your daughter seeing you doing the dishes apparently and watching you doing the dishes makes her think you know what I can break through the glass ceiling.
I can be the CEO of a company because my dad's doing the dishes.
You know what, don't take my word for it.
Sandberg has identified the toddler wage gap.
We have a toddler wage gap in this country, she insists.
We pay little boys more for chores than little girls and they do fewer of them.
The toddler wage gap is based on the difference in chores allotted to boys and girls.
fuck me cheryl seriously just fucking when i was a kid i didn't get paid to do chores I got told to do chores.
And then at the end of each week, my parents would give me and my sister a pound to buy crap with.
This seemed like a pretty fucking fair system, so why don't we do this?
Why don't we have it so we just pay kids exactly the same for their pocket money?
This seems like one of the few terrible social ills that we have to discuss that seems relatively easy to solve.
But Sandberg isn't done being a complete fucking fruitcake.
She says, women tend to do more housework at work.
Do they, Cheryl?
Women are taking notes, that's not housework, planning the parties, that's work, is it?
That's stuff she gets paid for, is it?
Doing the communal stuff, what?
Helping others to in what way?
And it's not benefiting them, apparently, because when women do it, people don't notice.
But when men do those same things, they get raises, bonuses, blowjobs.
I mean, fucking hell, Sandberg.
I can't believe anyone can have such a simplistic view of the work environment that they are in every day.
I mean, does she think that, like, you know, she sees a guy taking notes and the boss is like, Johnson, are you taking notes?
And he's like, yes, sir.
And he just turns to his sexual and he's like, double that man's wages.
But in case you're not convinced by women doing housework at work or the toddler pay gap, Dwayne Wade agrees and says in the NBA PSA, when men lean in, everyone wins, except for the men who wanted to spend their time playing video games and chilling out instead of doing housework.
Since we're talking about strong, independent women who don't need no man, what you can see on the screen in front of you is probably something that makes you think of maybe a terrorist organization.
And for those who can't see this, it is a mask, a balaclava wearing what appears to be woman on a purple and light purple background.
Honestly, there's no other way to describe it except it looks like a terrorist organization's flag.
And that's because it is.
It is the decal of the Autonomous Women's Front.
W-O-M-Y-N, so you know.
This is a small but active community of, I don't know, feminist revolutionaries, I think is probably the most accurate way of terming them.
Sorry, feminist Marxist revolutionaries.
Of course.
I mean, I don't know what I was thinking.
This is a picture of Comrade Danny proudly standing at the University of Texas in Austin to help spread the word about the Autonomous Women's Front.
So apparently they do need a man to help.
And if there's one thing that politically anarchist, Marxist, independent revolutionaries need, it's people's money, as they currently have an Indiegogo campaign active.
They describe themselves as the Autonomous Women's Front, a national anarcho-feminist activist outreach project which aims to advocate for largely underrepresented groups of the people of America, who are often marginalized by American politics and the economy.
Presumably by being idiots who are trying to pursue outdated political ideologies and have no marketable skills or worth.
And they go on to say that the Autonomous Women's Front is an anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalism organization using the system to turn itself inside out and rip it apart.
That sounds relatively seditious to me.
And they of course need funding to help start up a revolutionary movement.
Because that is how revolutionary movements start.
It is by crowdfunding on the internet.
But I mean you'd think that this revolutionary movement of anarcho-feminists would you would think that they would somehow be in breach of the terms and conditions of using Indiegogo to raise money.
I mean I don't think revolutionary movements are normally allowed on these sites.
Amongst their major concerns are weed, you'll be surprised to hear that they're pro, immigration which they are also pro, and education which they are anti.
Apparently American education is mostly empty and is of no service to American children or is destructive to their physical and intellectual advancement.
American children are not taught very many if any useful skills in the public education system and they seek to change that.
Well given that the product of the American education system has been the autonomous women's front, I completely agree with them.
The American education system is fucked.
They also have a number of lovely Rosie the Riveter pictures.
Here is obviously a black woman posing as Rosie the Riveter, a Hispanic woman posing as Rosie the Riveter, and finally Brianna Wu posing as Rosie the Riveter.
I swear to God I didn't make any of this up.
Speaking of transsexuals, new Overwatch character shows that Blizzard is really listening.
When Patricia Hernandez isn't writing about her friend Anna Anthropy without telling people about it, she's writing nonsense on Kotaku.
Oh no wait, those things go hand in hand.
This is an exercise in why you just shouldn't fucking listen to these people.
After the initial cast of Overwatch was revealed, some folks like feminist critic Anit Sarkeesian lamented that the female characters in the team-based shooter were all svelte.
Today, Blizzard revealed two new characters.
One of them is a direct response to those types of criticisms.
So Blizzard say, we've been hearing a lot of discussion among players about the need for diversity in video games.
Stop you there, Blizzard.
None of the people who are complaining about diversity in video games are going to play this game.
It is a first-person shooter.
They're not going to do it.
But that means a lot of things.
They won't see gender diversity.
They won't see racial diversity.
They won't see diversity along the lines of what country people are from.
There is also talk about diversity in different body types in that not everyone wants to have the exact same body type always represented.
And we just want you to know that we're listening and we're trying hard and we hope Zarya is a step in the right direction.
Well, she certainly seems kick-ass.
How does she seem kick-ass?
Because she isn't a normal looking woman.
That's all it takes to be kick-ass, is it?
Because by those standards, the person in the last Autonomous Women's Front Rosie the Riveter picture was kick-ass.
And I really didn't know that it wasn't Milton from Office Space.
My criticism here isn't of Patricia Hernandez, because at least she is excited that Blizzard are trying.
And I mean, previously in response to criticism of Overwatch's female characters, Blizzard said they wanted to build a game that could be enjoyed by everyone.
Which Blizzard, I'm going to tell you now, is a pointless, pointless endeavour.
It will not be enjoyed by, quote-unquote, everyone.
It will just be enjoyed by people who enjoy that genre.
But like I said, Patricia seems fine for it.
She says, with Zarya, they're proving that this wasn't just talk.
Awesome.
It's really cool to see more body types represented in games you know.
Professional writing aside, yeah, yeah, it's cool.
It's fine.
I like interesting characters.
I agree.
I'm more than happy with this character.
I think she does look quite interesting.
And I did actually watch the video of the test play of what the character can do.
And that was actually genuinely quite interesting.
I enjoyed first-person shoes.
And she had a few good abilities.
I particularly like the Gravity Well thing, which obviously drags people into a certain spot using Graviton Rays or whatever they were using to justify it.
But it looked pretty cool.
It's a good looking game.
And yeah, it's probably going to be fun.
But why shouldn't you bother, Blizzard, trying to cater to these people?
I can tell you why.
In fact, I will show you why.
These are the comments.
There you go, Blizzard.
Fight stereotypes with stereotypes.
Never fails.
Oh, you ungrateful fuck.
Yeah, as much as I like this character design, the fact that she's a butch Russian strong woman is forehead-slappingly obtuse.
Is it?
Is it really?
But you do say that you're going to play it because fuck, I'll play as a butch Russian strong woman any day of the week, you fucking moron.
Keep an eye on the bottom right-hand corner of these pictures so you can see just how popular these comments are as well.
Yeah, I know, I hate to be the one guy who was all negative Nancy about it, but jeez.
Now, if the other female characters could walk around in something more believable than a swimsuit...
I mean, given that none of them are actually wearing swimsuits, you'd think they'd, I don't know, be pleased or something, but apparently they're not, because these people are fucking never pleased.
Does quick diversity check?
Of course you do.
Of course.
You look at these new characters that have been rolled out and you think, hmm, diversity check.
Yep, still no African Americans on the roster.
Walks away.
Fucking don't bother, Blizzard.
You know, I'm all for making interesting, varied, diverse characters.
But don't do it as a method of trying to placate these twats.
They will never, ever be happy with anything you do.
They will never thank you for it.
They will always turn around and shit on you.
Just don't fucking bother.
And finally, the winner of the I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own Award is some guy called Chris Warcraft, who apparently plays in a band called Tripping Icarus that I'm just too old and contemptuous of to give a shit about.
As you may have noticed from this picture, he is stridently anti-Gamergates and went on a bit of a Twitter rant that I think it's worth having a quick look at.
He starts by saying, you know, Gamergates, we hate each other and that's okay.
I don't really know who you are, Chris.
I don't know you.
But I like to think that we can agree on one thing.
Fuck Scientology.
Yes, we can indeed agree there, Chris.
Also, you're in a cult too.
Flee.
Flee while you can before they take your thetans.
Chris, the Scientologists are worried about the thetans.
I'm not worried about anything.
And just so you remember, you're a feminist.
So you're worried about the patriarchy.
Which I think you're actually perpetuating by being a successful white man.
So he says, in tonight's episode of Seriously Mute Me for the Next Hour or So, we'll be examining the pressing topic of cults, Scientology versus Gamergate.
So he's deliberately going out of his way to provoke.
But that's fine, because I think it's a good comparison to make.
I think we should definitely examine whether Scientology is anything like Gamergate.
Then we should examine whether Scientology is like anything else.
So he says, now, pretty much every rational person in the world agrees that Scientology is a cult created by a science fiction writer to get tax breaks.
And we do.
A lot of people jumped on board because he was a more popular science fiction writer at the time, and tax breaks are sweet.
More monies.
Yes, yes indeed.
But over time, people began to realise that this cult was pretty awful.
It brainwashed members.
It demanded money from them.
It did lasting psychological harm.
Yes, you can see the projection coming out already.
And so society said, yeah, you guys treat the government once, you're a cult, you jerks.
I just want to stress that I've never been aware of Gamergate demanding money from anyone or receiving tax breaks from the government.
And as I'm due to pay my tax in the next couple of months, if we do get tax breaks from being part of Gamergate, I'd like to know about it.
So he goes on to say, the majority of opinion came down on the side of this is a cult, because that's how truth is established.
The majority of people say it, it must be true.
So what does this have to do with Gamergate?
I'm so glad you asked.
Let's compare.
Scientology believes thetans are a real thing.
Gamergate believes Vivian James is a real person.
What?
Vivian James was made up by people in Gamergate.
None of them believe that Vivian James is a real person.
You moron.
Scientology demands money for Xenu's affection.
I don't know if Scientology does do that, but we'll assume it does.
Gamergate demands money for documentaries.
No one's demanding any money for anything.
And Rouge Stares, I think he means Rogue Stars, game.
I'm not sure you understand how capitalism works, Chris.
RogueStar sells his game if you want to buy it.
There's no obligation there.
Scientology violently attacks non-believers who dare question it.
No, that's Islam.
I think what you mean is Scientology violently lawyers up against people who dare question it or mock it.
And Gamergate violently attacks non-believers who dare question it.
There have been no incidents of violence linked to Gamergate.
So Scientology has an insane actor cheerleading as its frontman.
I don't think you understand what cheerleading and frontman are, if you think they are one and the same.
But yeah, okay, Tom Cruise, yeah.
And Gamergate has an insane actor cheerleading as its frontman.
I assume you're talking about Adam Baldwin.
How is he insane, exactly?
Scientology threatens adherents who talk about leaving the faith.
Gamergate threatens adherents who talk about leaving the faith.
Well, it's not a faith, and lots of people have left without anyone batting an eyelid.
I mean, Internet Aristocrat left and no one threatened him.
Lizzie had to leave because someone from presumably anti-Gamergate or a third-party troll doxed and threatened her, and so people in Gamergate were very supportive of her leaving to protect herself.
So, I mean, I'm just someone who has some facts, that's all.
I might be part of this cult.
I can't be sure that I'm not.
I mean, I guess really it's for outside people to judge.
So, Chris finishes this diatribe with, so as a rational person, I look at these similarities and can only think if Scientology is a cult, which it is, Gamergate is too, except that you haven't actually shown any similarities at all.
Chris probably doesn't know what sophistry is, but he's just practiced some.
He's made a series of tenuous links that sound vaguely correct until you just analyze any of them, and then you find that none of it is actually true.
And this is a poster from the Game Developers Conference 2015.
Feminism isn't a destination.
You don't get to identify and quit.
Eliminating conscious bias is step one out of infinity.
We are all issed.
Conquering unconscious bias requires active work.
Express your anti-bias.
This was at the Game Developers Conference this year.
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