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March 15, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
25:13
This Week in Stupid (15⧸03⧸2015)
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Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 15th of March 2015.
Be warned, you are probably seriously actually going to start slapping yourself in the forehead because some idiotic chickens are coming home to roost.
For example, if you can believe it, parents who praise children too much may encourage narcissism, says a study that nobody fucking needed.
Unbelievably, fucking unbelievably, research has shown that parental warmth may be a better strategy than inflating the ego.
No fucking way.
Oh, I'm so glad that there are social scientists on hand.
So getting right to the meat of it, children whose parents who describe them as more special than other children and as kids who deserve something extra in life were more likely to score higher on tests of narcissism than peers who are not lauded in this way.
No fucking shit.
Children believe it when their parents tell them that they are more special than others.
And apparently, that may not be good for them or for society.
Thank fuck someone is being paid to research this because how could we have possibly known this any other way?
You're never going to believe this, but apparently parental warmth and encouragement might be a better strategy than inflating the ego.
If you can believe it, no one knew this until a social scientist turned up to tell us.
Fucking and shockingly, youths who said that they were told often that they were loved by their parents were more likely to show high self-esteem but not narcissism.
This is almost unfathomable to me.
I mean, I actually remember about 20 years ago when all this shit was being implemented.
When it was all like, oh, you know, you can't lose.
You shouldn't have competitions.
It should all be about telling children how wonderful they are.
I remember when this was being implemented.
And back then, everyone was like, no, this is fucking stupid.
This is really fucking stupid.
And yet they did it anyway.
They didn't care.
They knew better.
They absolutely knew better.
And lo and behold, it turns out they knew fuck all.
Holy shit, I think this story is going to give me a fucking aneurysm, right?
Children with high self-esteem did not see themselves as more special than others, but agreed with the statements that they were happy with themselves and they like themselves as they were.
People with high self-esteem think they're as good as others, whereas narcissists think they're fucking better than others.
Well done, Bushman, you cretin!
Fucking, I- I can't, you must be a fucking alien or something.
You've just come down, you've never met a person before, you don't know anything about human interaction.
Well, I've done a study, and these are the results, and that's what the study says.
You're fucking brilliant.
That's fucking wonderful.
Now, what are we going to do about the generation of narcissists you molly-coddling twats have raised?
What are you going to do?
I just love the way these are quoted.
As if they just don't know what's going on around them and this is all a gigantic surprise to them.
Rather than raising self-esteem, overvaluing practices might inadvertently raise levels of narcissism.
No fucking, no shit.
Is that a fact, is it?
I'm glad that's a fact, actually.
I'm glad that's a fact, because anyone who knew anything about human character was saying, no, this is a fucking stupid idea.
This is going to have really bad knock-on effects.
And now, we have nothing but social justice warriors coming out of universities.
Because just self-entitled fucking narcissists who think they are absolutely entitled to ruin everything for everyone.
So now, what are you going to do?
We're going to turn Barbie into a spying device so we can hear everything kids are saying.
That's what we're going to do.
I see.
So Mattel is bringing Barbie to life with voice recognition software that will allow the doll to listen to children speak and give chatty responses.
It will learn over time, remembering your dog's name and adjusting to new topics.
Teaching kids to talk to inanimate objects.
That's what this is going to do.
It's going to teach kids to talk to inanimate objects.
Of course, privacy advocates are calling this the eavesdropping Barbie.
Because it fucking is.
As the doll listens, audio recordings travel over the web to a server where the snippets of speech are recognized and processed.
But it gets better than that.
Parents can choose to receive daily or weekly emails with access to the audio files of their children's conversations with Hello Barbie.
Parents can now spy on their kids as if they're being fucking wiretapped.
I'm just, I'm in awe of how wrong all of this is.
But I mean, at least this is just a private company.
Let's ask what the police, what they think of all this.
Put CCTV in every home, say Scotland Yard Chief.
Fucking hell, just the world is being run by absolute morons.
Just absolute fucking halfwits.
It'll help us trap burglars.
Brilliant.
I am less worried about burglars than I am about recreating Orwell's nightmare in the country I live in.
Hoganhouse said that police forces needed more crime scene footage to match against their 12 million images of suspects and offenders.
He called on families and businesses to install cameras at eye level to exploit advances of facial recognition technology.
Fuck yourself.
There is no fucking way.
I can't even believe you're fucking asking this.
The proposals on the increasing amount of privately owned CCTV cameras are quite frankly Orwellian and risk turning members of the public into an extension of the police, said Renee Sampson of Big Brother Watch.
Yes, they fucking do.
Private CCTV is completely unregulated.
Recommending greater use of CCTV to gather more images of people's faces, often innocent people's faces, undermines the security of each and every one of us.
Which is fine, and I'm quite worried frankly about the police being massively corrupt and perverted police officers using this for their own pleasure.
And the thing is, these are fucking useless anyway.
It threatens to undermine people's confidence and inject fear in the place where they should feel most secure.
I'm not sure it will make anyone feel safer and the use of facial recognition technology remains largely untested and unproven.
Research from the College of Policing last week revealed that CCTV only modestly cuts crimes such as vandalism and car theft and is useless in stopping violence.
Experts said that better lighting and neighborhood watch schemes were more valuable.
Or why don't we just go for dystopian police state?
Not only is this fucking ridiculous, but it's really pissed me off.
I really wish the chief of Scotland Yard would think before he speaks.
Let's take a look at academia.
German professor rebuked for rejecting intern over India's rape problem.
You're probably thinking, wait, what?
But no, no, this is exactly as it sounds.
Germany's ambassador to India sent a scathing letter to a professor at Leipzig University who refused to give an Indian student an internship citing India's rape problem.
Seriously, this is actually something that happened.
This Indian student's like, oh wow, I'm going to go to this German university.
It's going to be great.
I'm going to work really hard.
He gets there and the woman's like, you know, there's a lot of rape that happens in India.
And he's just like, um, what?
This is like, yeah, well, until that's sort out, you can't come to my university.
This guilt by association was so heinous that the German ambassador to India had to write to the professor, Professor Annette Beck Sickinger, chair of biochemistry at the university, saying, let's be clear, India is not a country of rapists, you fucking idiot.
In her email, she had written, unfortunately, I don't accept any Indian male students for internships.
We hear a lot about the rape problem in India, which I cannot support.
I have many female students in this group, so I think this attitude is something I cannot support.
You giant fucking racist.
Holy shit.
In a later email, she wrote, It was unbelievable that Indian society was not able to solve this problem.
The problem of rape.
How Indians, how haven't you figured this out yet?
Adding that it demonstrates the attitude of society towards women, and that many female professors in Germany decided to no longer accept Indian male students.
Fucking hell!
She's since apologised for her comments, saying that they were taken out of context.
Not that I can even imagine what kind of context would justify her reaction to this poor guy.
Just unfucking believable, isn't it?
I can't understand where feminists are getting their power from, because somehow in Poland, a Polish archbishop is being sued by a militant feminist for preaching against the evils of abortion and sexual immorality.
You know, like he's a fucking Catholic or something.
So Archbishop Joseph Makilik of the Archdiocese of Fuck you Poland will have a court hearing tomorrow on the 12th of March.
He's being sued by a strident militant feminist for slander and defamation.
And his crime is apparently daring to proclaim from the pulpit that sin is sin, that God does not change, that evil remains evil.
Because in Poland, feminism supersedes the word of God.
Seriously though, this man is actually having his religious freedom impinged upon by feminism.
With legal consequences because he believes differently to her.
But you might be thinking, well, it's the Catholic Church.
Surely they're going to grow a spine.
Or they're going to host a feminist conference featuring a professor who compares mass to gay sex.
Which I don't see any Catholics having a problem with at all.
What the fuck?
So as part of the Vatican's official observance of International Women's Day, this Sunday saw two events.
One brought in from the outside and the other organized by the Pontifical Council for Culture.
And this has come under public criticism for its ham-fisted, tone-deaf, un-Catholic and feminist-inspired approach to women's cultures.
Probably because they allowed Tina Beattie, a British feminist academic notorious for her advocacy of abortion, homosexual relations, gay marriage, who once compared Catholic mass to homosexual sex.
Well, I just have absolutely no idea why a bunch of Catholics are so bothered about this.
So a member of the US group Future Church, which campaigns mainly for women priests, echoed the suggestion that the seminar could help develop policy for the church.
Which is another thing that the Catholics should be thrilled about, women priests.
And this would benefit all men and women, but particularly women.
And despite the single issue focus of Rose Milavic's group, Goetz denied the seminar aimed at changing church policy or doctrine.
To Vatican Radio she said, we just want to highlight the different experiences of Catholic women and put more focus on what they're doing for the poor and marginalized.
We don't want you to change, we just want you to be just guilt-tripped enough until you do.
The article goes on to say that International Women's Day, a holiday started by the Soviet revolutionaries in the early 20th century, has become an annual showcase for atheistic political feminism in many transnational organizations like the UN and EU.
Deborah Gyapong, a widely read Canadian freelance Catholic journalist and blogger, spoke to Lifesight News about the partisan agenda of the weekend's dual conferences, asking what it had to do with the Catholic religion.
To which the answer is very simple.
Absolutely nothing.
Which is why this all sounds so ridiculous.
You know what pisses me off most about feminism is the activism.
I absolutely hate it.
This title is everything about feminism that I hate.
Black feminists, why would I care what race they are, are furious, why would I care about that, about this all male, what's wrong with that, all white, again what's wrong with that, band's racist name.
Is it a racist name?
Or is it a name that just includes the word black?
This will be a familiar refrain to you, I'm sure.
Last week a petition began circulating on social media that called for rock band Black Pussy to change its name or face a boycott of all the venues that book the band by people who are never going to go and see it.
As of today, the petition has garnered more than 360 whole signatures and is being reported on because it fits the author's political agenda.
Outraged posts accusing the band of racism and sexism have also appeared on Twitter and Facebook like anyone gives a flying fuck.
You'll be surprised to hear that San Francisco is involved in this as one San Francisco event listing suggested people call and email the local venue Bottom of the Hill to try and cancel the band's show.
Because if they won't capitulate like good little bitches, then definitely bullying them is the next step.
In a deeply embarrassing turn of events for all involved, the Daily Dot decided to interview these black feminists to record their hysterical opinions on a subject that shouldn't even concern them.
It's a passive advertisement for violence, said Layla Hofstein, the first entitled Millennial Narcissist Within Reach.
To take a really explicit name that just says, hey, we don't give a shit about you and the safety you feel on the street every day, we just want to exploit it without explaining just how this affects her safety in any way, shape or form.
Thankfully though, Black Pussy don't give a fuck.
They say on their Facebook page, Black Pussy does not condone or endorse any sexism, racism, ageism or violence or any other douchebaggery that has been spoiling the party since the party started.
you're offended by the band's name please refer to the following video unfortunately for the band this video didn't help because there are a great number of retards out there who will actually say things like this Raleigh resident YM Carrington told the Daily Dot the band's name is triggering.
This giant fucking racist then went on to project their own degeneracy onto everyone else by saying when you see a group of white guys saying that it triggers images of black female licentiousness like black women are loose and degenerate.
Well hey you fucking said it.
Carrington goes on to further embarrass themselves by saying those of us who are reduced to our bodies we have a visceral reaction.
Well why don't you try growing a fucking personality then?
The Daily Dot then goes on to shit the bed by saying the visceral reaction black feminists are having to the band's name isn't easy to explain.
No it fucking is.
They have been conditioned.
They have been conditioned to see themselves only as their race and gender.
The whole point of being a black person in this country is being owned.
Who fucking taught this person that?
Who taught them to think that?
This person never experienced slavery.
They never saw slavery.
They never even knew anyone who was a slave.
And yet that is in their head.
They are trapped like a fucking prisoner behind invisible bars presumably made by a white person, a white upper class person who's feeling guilty about their own fucking privilege.
Honestly, I swear to God what's been done to these people seems to be tantamount to abuse.
I mean what kind of quality of life can they be having if they see a band name and they're like shit I am so offended by this I am fucking triggered.
These are the sort of idiots who are going to accuse Apple of being racist because their coolest feature depends on light.
So some tard who's clearly not very fun at party says on the back of the new Apple Watch there are two sets of lights and sensors.
One sends out and receives visible light while the other works in the infrared part of the spectrum.
Together they form the technical core of the watch's coolest feature, a heart rate monitor.
Well, we have definitely got different standards of what's cool.
And because of the technology that most smart watchmakers, including Apple, have chosen, the problems may be exacerbated if you have darker skin.
Because physics is racist.
A light pulse is sent through the skin and picked up by a sensor.
Based on how the light scatters, the sensor can measure how oxygenated the blood is, which allows one to calculate heart rate based on how often fresh arterial blood is pumping through.
And there seems to be a question of whether skin colour impacts the accuracy of readings.
So I presume that if it does, they're going to be like, well, no one can have it now.
I know that it only affects some people and it's only because of factors outside of anyone's control, but because of those factors now nobody gets to have this.
The problem of course is that Apple's executives are almost exclusively racist.
I mean white people.
And this means that they have changed the laws of physics so that black people are inherently disadvantaged by their new products because they hate niggers.
They look at them.
Look at each one of these faces.
There is no way this guy doesn't own slaves.
I'm absolutely certain that this guy regularly beats black prostitutes.
And I'm pretty sure that this guy is the singer for black pussy.
What a bunch of despicable assholes.
We are indeed arriving at the first world problems now.
Every female face in recent Disney and Pixar movies looks the same.
And then they have three pictures of faces that do not look the same.
Brilliant.
Every Disney Pixar female character in the past decade has had the exact same face.
Upon realizing that Tangle's Rapunzel and Frozen's Anna and Elsa all share a similar look, Tumblr user Alex wanted to see how far this thing went.
I think I've identified your problem.
Yes, most of the men do look like drooling retards.
There are only a few faces among them that one would really consider handsome.
Compared to the female faces who all look like beauty queens, not one dribbling retard among them.
Leave it to Tumblr to complain about this bullshit.
The other question is, is it inherently bad that characters have similar faces?
If the answer is no, then why are Disney and Pixar so intent on diversifying male face shapes?
I can save you the trouble of worrying about this, love.
Two reasons.
If the women look like slack George Spackers, then one, women wouldn't buy these products, and two, you'd bitch and moan that women look like slack George Spackers.
But it's just fine for men to look like slack George Spackers.
That's diversity.
Winner of Clickbait article title of the week is, Why Do We Still Think the Crip Face is OK?
Disability Academic?
People wonder why I think academia needs to be burned to the ground.
Beth Haller talks about new ways of giving people with disabilities control over their own narratives.
I'm going to guess that it should be based around not treating them like they're fucking different or incapable.
Believe it or not, they actually compare some guy's Oscar winning performance as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything to Blackface.
Just, I mean, I'm not paying the money I would need to read the article because what's the fucking point?
I'm sure you already know how it'd go and how fucking stupid it'd be.
And so we come to what is probably the most requested article of all time for this week in Stupid.
With Jeremy Clarkson suspended, here's my vision for an eco-feminist top gear.
Guys, are you saying that you don't want to see an eco-feminist Topgear?
Because now that she said it, I want to see an eco-feminist top gear.
Hang on, what's this tagline?
Let's seize the chance to make an intelligent series about the cool cars of the future without the heedless fossil fuel use, mindless racial slurs, and scientific illiteracy.
What we're saying really is that we want Top Gear to grow up.
The author of this article starts as they mean to go on.
The problem with Jeremy Clarkson, and I like it when anyone starts with the problem with an individual, apart from him being a dick, is that he's on the wrong side of history.
Yeah, he's in no way interested in future cars.
There is a future for cars.
There is a brilliant future for cars.
There is even a future for programs about cars.
But for people doing stupid stunts in cars while insisting that they are for petrol heads who by definition don't accept the bald facts of anthropogenic climate change, not so much.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I love it by definition.
Petrolheads, people who love cars, don't accept the facts of anthropogenic climate change.
Just fucking brilliant.
Now that is, that is amazing.
That is exactly what I'd expect an eco-feminist to say.
The next five years might be the most exciting the car industry has ever encountered.
The coolest car in the world right now is the BMW i8, a part electric, part petrol, dreamscape of silent majesty.
Wow, I'm sure Jeremy Clarkson's like, get this shit out of here.
I hate this car.
I don't know, I don't care about cars.
But if it's so fucking awesome, why wouldn't Clarkson be like, hey, this is awesome?
Car manufacturing weirdly has not just caught up with but superseded the world's environmental concerns.
Vehicles that give off few emissions and use modest amounts of petrol look like dinosaurs now compared to the ones that use no petrol at all.
And I bet Jeremy Clarkson's like, well, if there's no petrol involved and I can't call myself a petrol head, I don't want it.
If the performance on these cars is so fucking good, then why would he care?
Why would he be bothered?
I mean, I don't know that Clarkson isn't like that.
He might well be, for all I know, but just fucking listen to this, right?
I've sat in cars whose electric cells were regenerated by the kinetic energy of the car going downhill while feeling like I was in a hummer.
The solar industry's work on the battery storage is about to rip the whole industry a new tank.
We're standing on the precipice of electric and in the near term, renewable transport.
It will change everything, especially in the US, where personal transport accounts for a third of oil use.
It will reshape geopolitics and everything we know.
A true program about cars would be one that roped all this like a steed and said, look, look at what we've discovered.
We can take the shapes of the old and power of the new and create something that's basically free running on limitless energy like in Star Trek.
This is the sort of fucking language the hipster dipshits are using with gaming.
We know you're enjoying your hobby, but imagine what it could be.
Imagine what great heights it could reach.
And now she comes to insert her religion into the argument.
Feminism is relevant because only a macho culture would have allowed a bunch of idiots to elite heedless fossil fuel use with mindless racial slurs and scientific illiteracy.
I wouldn't accidentally call someone a slope.
I wouldn't charge around Argentina spewing asinide triumphalism about some long gone war.
Why not?
Because the impetus behind those actions is territorial and that's not what feminism or for that matter human beings are about.
Well I'll stop you there love.
Human beings are very much territorial creatures.
But I love her reasoning because she doesn't like Jeremy Clarkson and what they do on Top Gear She thinks he should have Topgear taken away from him and given to her.
And what would a fucking progressive Top Gear have?
Cars that were not cool!
Fucking why?
This is how people know that you are privileged rich twats because most normal people see cars that are not cool all the fucking time.
They are not a fucking novelty.
They literally want to turn it into some kind of art house Topgear that's kind of like Tomorrow World except you know just around the corner realistically possibly about to happen tomorrow instead about cars that are happening today.
You know, just I don't watch Fog Gear, I've seen it once or twice and I still know more about it than this fucking idiot.
I know more about why people watch it than this idiot.
All this idiot would have done is tank the ratings, which is why there is a Bring Black Clarkson petition.
And the supporters of this petition outnumber all of the political parties in the UK combined.
This petition to bring back Clarkson has probably now over 700,000 signatures and the total membership for every political party in the UK, this is not including voters obviously, is 632,000.
People care more about Top Gear than they do about politics.
And I'm going to hazard a guess as to why.
I think it is because politics, anything political, anything anyone says is fucking political has become asinine, it's become pointless and it's become pathetic.
And I'll finish this week with fraternity members to undergo racial sensitivity hazing.
Compared to everything that we've been through so far this week and all the previous weeks, this doesn't look very unusual, does it?
It's actually, it's actually really not that remarkable.
But this is a story from The Onion.
Nice try, Onion, but real life, the progressives in real life have your satire beaten.
You are not more ridiculous than them.
What you say just seems to fit right neatly in alongside it.
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