Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Addressing Some Criticisms

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June 1, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

15:39

Addressing Some Criticisms

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	So recently I have had some criticisms leveled at me.
	Well I say that, but that's not true.
	They've actually been leveled about me in places other than my channel or my Twitter feed or anything like that.
	So people have had to send them to me to make me aware of them, which I have to say I really really appreciate.
	Thank you to the people who have sent these directly to me because otherwise I probably wouldn't have seen them.
	And that really annoys me because obviously it doesn't give me a chance to defend myself.
	And the thing about this is that some of these criticisms really got under my skin, but not because there was any merit to them.
	Because if there was merit to them, I would say, oh, okay, hold my hands up.
	I'm guilty of that, if that was true.
	And I'll try and change my ways.
	It's something that I would want to change about myself.
	My problem with these is that, well, frankly, they're just out and out lies.
	I'll start with this one that was answered by the armoured skeptic in his Under the Helmet 2 video.
	The links will be in the description as always, because I guess I have a tendency to report things out of context.
	Go on uninformed rants or dig up stuff from several years before and present it as a recent event.
	Now this comment bothers me for several reasons.
	It's not an honest attempt at criticism.
	It is an attempt at poisoning the well.
	For example, this person says, I've seen you post on Sargon's videos.
	Well, why would you see that?
	If I have a tendency to do all of the things that you are claiming, why would you watch my videos?
	But this comment also presupposes everything that it says without providing any evidence to back up anything that they've said.
	Doesn't Sargon's tendency to report things out of context, again, what do I report out of context?
	How do I report things out of context?
	Go on uninformed rants?
	Well, go on.
	What do I go on uninformed rants about?
	Maybe the EU, I suppose.
	I'm not massively informed about the EU and I don't like it.
	I can hold my hands up to that one, but in other regards, I don't think I do.
	Or dig up stuff from several years before and present it as a recent event bother you.
	Now, again, I don't do this.
	The only time I can think that this might seem relevant is in the video I did called The Problem with Heavy Metal is Metalheads, where I started with an article from 2006 and went in chronological order until present day.
	The fact that I left the date in the screenshot I was using in the video, I thought, made it clear that I wasn't trying to present this as a recent event and in fact presenting a chain of events.
	But perhaps I didn't make that clear enough or something like that.
	I have to say I do like the internal inconsistency of this comment though.
	Sargon's tendency to report things out of context slash dig up stuff from years before.
	Well, things that happened in the past provide context for what is happening in the present.
	This is in fact completely asked backwards.
	If you were to take things away from their historical context and ignore things that have happened in the past, then you are actually taking something out of context.
	So as I said, this comment doesn't really seem to have any validity to it, and it seems to be an attempt at poisoning the well by someone who clearly doesn't like me.
	And I don't mind if people don't like me.
	That's fine.
	I'm going after people's ideologies.
	These are deeply held beliefs I know that a lot of people have.
	So I'm not surprised that they hate me.
	Moving on to the next one.
	This is from a comment on Bob Chipman's recent screw attack video.
	Again, link in the description.
	So FoxyGon was commenting to Bob saying, if you want to actually have a discussion, reach out to Sargon, myself, or a number of other people and actually have a discussion for once.
	Which I think is perfectly reasonable.
	To which Model Omega replied, Ah yes, Sargon, the brilliant intellectual who, when showed a research paper that provided evidence of cultural factors affecting boys' abilities to assess their own mathematical ability, he asked, How is that cultural when the study itself said so?
	Well, if you allow me to just address that point, I get the feeling that you're taking this out of context.
	I don't actually remember this interaction, so I will have to assume what happened.
	But I get the feeling either this study was a bit social science-y and didn't actually prove what you were asserting it proves, or I simply didn't read it and I was asking for you to give me a summary.
	And even if I didn't understand how the study showed that it was cultural, asking you to explain it to me is not wrong.
	So, this person next says, the man who claims he doesn't care when women have multiple sexual partners, but goes out of his way to emphasise the consequences of doing so, and refers to women in their 30s who have had many sexual partners as used up slappers.
	Because someone who obviously doesn't care would use such derogatory language to refer to people making the wrong choices, you know, the choices he doesn't care about.
	Well, I don't.
	And I am under no obligation to be tone-policed by you.
	I don't care that you got offended, that I called them used-up slappers.
	That's just too bad.
	What I have said here is not factually inaccurate.
	There are increasing numbers of women in their mid to late 30s who are desperate to settle down and yet cannot find a man with which to do so.
	Because many men, frankly, aren't interested in women who have been promiscuous their entire adult lives until this point.
	Deal with it.
	None of your criticisms affect my criticisms of Movie Bob in any way.
	You have addressed none of my points that Movie Bob should be addressing.
	You have refuted nothing.
	And as Foxygon sensibly says, if you have a problem with Sargon of Akad, take it up with him.
	In fact, invite him to have a discussion instead of pissing and moaning in the comment section of a YouTube video that isn't even his.
	Go at him, what's stopping you?
	Well, I think I know what's stopping him.
	The last set of criticisms I'll be dealing with in this video are from someone called Mr. TARDIS Reviews.
	A person who describes themselves as a big Doctor Who fan who loves looking back and reviewing old episodes and new ones.
	Armed with exploding jelly babies, the power of editing his trusty Trilby, Mr. TARDIS sets out to review British television shows and movies of all genres.
	Yes, this is the guy, and yes, he probably is tipping his fedora, I mean Trilby, sorry, at a lady as we speak.
	So, a chap called Adam Walker posted to his Facebook page, since you've made a large amount of claims against Gamergate, what are your views on its supporters, e.g., Sargon of Akkad?
	To which Mr. TARDIS Reviews replies, Sargon of Akkad is a closeted misogynist and a contrarian of the highest order.
	For those who aren't aware, contrarian is someone who simply takes an opposing position, no matter how unpopular or inaccurate it might be.
	I'm not even going to waste my time talking about accusations of misogyny because I criticise feminism.
	And a contrarian of the highest order.
	You know, there is a certain degree of truth to this.
	I do like to make sure that all points are represented in a discussion.
	So I am prone to playing devil's advocate if nobody else is representing that side of the issue.
	I think having all opinions represented is a good thing.
	We then descend into the realms of Sargon's lore.
	If Anita Sarkeesian said, I think GameGate is pretty cool, then Sargon would make a 20-minute video trying to prove her wrong with cherry-picked evidence, massively biased, of course, just because it was Anita who said it.
	Actually, I wouldn't.
	I would say, wow, what a surprise.
	As always, my evidence will be in the description bar to look at, so if anyone thinks I'm being massively biased or cherry-picking, they are more than welcome to check for themselves.
	Just so Mr. TARDIS Reviews is aware, if Anita turned around and said, actually, I support Gamergate, GameGate's wonderful, I was wrong, they were right, I would do what I suggest we do with Ian Miles Chong, which was accept the apology.
	I think all Mr. TARDIS has done here is describe to us what he would do against people that he dislikes, because he cherry-picks evidence when he doesn't simply make it up, and is massively biased, of course, just because it was, for example, me who said it.
	And I meant it when I said he made things up.
	He says, I take anything that man said with a mountain of salt.
	This is the guy who said that if you're a feminist, so you want equality between men and women, then you're mentally ill and deserve to be raped.
	Wow.
	I have obviously never advocated that anyone deserves to be raped.
	And have you been to Tumblr recently?
	He then goes on to say, oh, it doesn't help that he throws around words like feminist and patriarchy, but he clearly has no idea what they actually mean.
	Well, that's interesting because neither do feminists.
	The dictionary definition of feminism is irrelevant when the actions of feminists go against it so heavily.
	This is my favourite part though.
	I get asked linked to Sargon a lot when talking about Gamergates.
	It genuinely baffles me that people's arguments amount to, see, Gamergates isn't a sexist movement.
	Let me prove it by linking videos from someone who is blatantly a misogynist.
	That logic just words fail me.
	Well, maybe it's because I'm not actually a misogynist and you can't seem to accept that.
	For anyone who's not familiar, this is the old canade of feminists saying, oh, if you disagree with feminism, you must be a misogynist, which is the oldest and most worn out weapon in the feminist arsenal.
	It has in fact become a joke.
	But again, you'll note that this is an ad hominem argument.
	It refutes or proves nothing.
	In fact, the argument he is making is self-defeating.
	Adam Walker goes on to stress that he's not even a fan of mine.
	But he's still capable of accurately representing my position by saying that I am for equal rights, but not taken to the extreme.
	And he is very clearly able to delineate between criticism of feminism and hatred of women.
	So people asked him to prove his assertion that I had claimed that feminists are mentally ill and deserve to be raped.
	Obviously, he couldn't prove that because I'd never made that claim.
	And someone called him on it and said that he had made it up.
	Just for the record, I was actually being facetious when I said that feminism is a mental illness.
	I imagine this came from a video that I made called Feminism is a Mental Illness, some time ago now actually, where I was criticising feminists for creating a petition that claims that the men's rights movement lionizes Elliot Roger and calls him a hero, celebrating him as a martyr.
	Now, if feminists do believe this, then they are indeed insane.
	I am of course again being facetious.
	What this is is just black propaganda against men's rights people because I don't know, feminists are intellectually dishonest.
	So Mr. TARDIS Reviews responded to this, and I cannot believe that this is his position.
	He says, Trilby made this up.
	I'd like to think that if you're a regular viewer slash reader of mine, you wouldn't be so quick to accuse me of lying, especially since you know how I put honesty first and foremost in everything I do.
	His comment about how feminists should be raped was made in his stop perpetuating rape culture video.
	This of course is a barefaced lie.
	I will of course leave a link in the description to this video so you can watch it for yourself.
	It's only about five minutes long, and I watched the whole video in preparation for this video, just to be sure that I hadn't, for some reason, said it as a joke or something like that.
	But I absolutely, in no way, suggest that anyone should be raped.
	Mr. TARDIS Reviews appears to come from the Joseph Goebbels school of lying.
	If you lie big enough and keep repeating it, people might believe you.
	And bafflingly, he then says, if I was going to lie about something, which I strive never ever to do, I wouldn't have lied about something that would be so easy to disprove.
	Well, why did you?
	That's the question.
	Why are you lying about this?
	I have never, ever said anyone should be raped, especially not in the video that you're talking about.
	I find this incredible.
	It's just like full Macintosh or something.
	You've left reality.
	And then to brazenly say, but I'm not lying, and I can't believe you'd accuse me of lying is just incredible.
	It's absolutely incredible.
	The two people that he's talking to have both watched the video and say, look, that claim simply isn't in the video.
	What you're saying is simply not true.
	And unsurprisingly, this is the last comment in this comment thread, and this Mr. TARDIS Reviews fellow has decided that he doesn't want to continue that conversation with them.
	I can't imagine why.
	I apologise that this wasn't one of the more fun and entertaining videos, but I really felt like I had to address these comments because I see a lot of people lying about me.
	A lot, in fact.
	And it really perturbs me.
	It's like, wow, there are actually people who will go out of their way to deliberately lie about things I have or have not said.
	Or sometimes they will simply make false accounts to look like me and then go around other videos, my videos, other people's videos, making comments that I suppose they think might fool people into thinking it's me.
	Obviously, it's not, and anyone looking at this and then watching my latest videos will see this probably wasn't done by me, but it's just really bizarre.
	Absolutely bizarre to the extent that I think they're probably feminist ideologues will go to attempts to just lie.
	And I guess they're attempts to discredit me because they're afraid of what I have to say.
	I see this quite a lot.
	And none of them ever come to me.
	None of them come to me.
	I get people sending them to me, thankfully, so I can address them.
	But yeah, and so just to close this, again, I'm sorry that this isn't an entertaining one.
	Tomorrow's video will be.
	But this is just something I really wanted to clear up and just address because it really pisses me off.
	Because one of the things I do prize is my intellectual honesty.
	If I thought I was being intellectually dishonest, I would feel ashamed and I would make a video to say that I'm wrong.
	I've done it before and I'm sure if necessary, I will do it again.
	If I am in fact shown to be wrong but an entire video retraction isn't necessary, I will put corrections to the video that I have made mistakes in so people can see this in future and know that there are corrections that have been made.
	If people want to attempt to poison the well against me by lying, then I can't stop them.
	But I guess I would ask people to refer them to this video and let people make judgments for themselves.
	And if anyone has any questions, I do try to make myself available.
	I'm more available by Twitter than in the comments these days because I get a lot of comments on the videos.
	There's only so much I can keep up with really.
	So if you've got something you want to bring to my attention, Twitter's probably the best place for it.
	I do read the comments on my videos within the first day or so of them being up, but after that, I honestly, there's no way I really feasibly can.

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