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Oct. 11, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
26:57
This Week in Stupid (11⧸10⧸2015)
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Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 11th of October 2015.
I'd like to start by thanking everyone who sends me material for this series.
Without you guys this would be a lot more difficult, and I just really, really appreciate what you do.
Since so many people are sending me suggestions, and often when something silly comes up, a lot of people will send me the same article, because it's such a ripe candidate for this series.
I'd really appreciate it if instead of tweeting it directly at me or emailing it to me, you could either tweet it with the hashtag TWIS or post it on the subreddit r slash sagonovakad.
The reason I ask this is because I really like being responsive to people on social media, but it can be quite difficult given the large number of notifications I receive.
I already know that I miss a lot of what people send to me just out of sheer volume, so if you could post it on either of these locations, then I can check them at a later date as I'm coming up to compiling the video, and I can be a lot more certain that I've seen something you've sent me.
It should also make it easier for me to be able to deal with people online just because I'll have less to filter through.
So thanks in advance and thanks a lot for sending me stuff anyway.
I do appreciate it.
I just need to manage it a little more efficiently.
So this week we begin with an update on the UN's cyber violence report.
For those not familiar, that was the UN report that said cyber violence is equivalent to physical violence against women.
A report so cack-handed that even Zoe Quinn, one of the speakers on the panel about cyber violence to the UN, condemned it.
Well, it was so bad the United Nations has apologised for this fault-ridden cyber violence report.
A spokesperson for the United Nations International Telecommunication Union apologised for several errors and poorly sourced material in its broadband commission Cyber Violence Against Women and Girls report, and vowed that it would be much improved in a forthcoming revision.
Most media criticism focused on footnotes.
Some citations were left blank, others provided definitions without citing the source, and one even cited a file on the author's own C drive.
Even if somehow you could get past the premise that words on Twitter are the same as a fist to the face, this completely unraveled everything about the report.
If this were done by a GCSE student, they would have failed, let alone be something that was presented to the UN.
The report also cited a publication affiliated with controversial activist Lyndon LaRouche, who claimed that links exist between video games such as Pokemon and with real-world killings.
Well, I mean, this is really a guilt by association argument.
I mean, I don't actually know what the argument made by LaRouche is in this instance.
It might not be that those Pokemon are coming to kill people in public schools.
It might actually be a sound argument.
I realise that it's probably not, but this isn't the way you should judge.
So what went wrong?
To answer that question, I spoke with Sarah Parks, Media and Public Information Chief at ITU in Geneva.
She is now ultimately responsible for the report and will be the final person to sign off on the revision.
That's great, but did she sign off on the original version?
I would like to speak to that person.
We got a lot of feedback on it, and some of it has been very constructive.
Some from academia have contributed research.
We are very pleased that the digital environment allows this kind of quick collaboration.
Yeah, I'm sure you are.
I'm sure you're thrilled that your name is mud all across the internet now.
You know, you're a joke.
What?
To the C drive, have you seen people on Twitter changing their handles to mock you?
I mean, it sounds like you were the person who signed off on the original one as well, from what you've said there.
But remember, this paper was presented in conjunction with a panel that featured Anita Jack Thompson Sarkeesian.
So, there is going to be an attempt to link video games with violence, in some way.
When asked about the report's association of violent video games with real-world violence, we have had a professor from a university share some of the studies with us and will be referenced in the revised research.
Well, do try this time, please.
It's a difficult area because there are certainly studies that show no link to real-world violence.
But I think on the other side of the debate, there's still some question because there's no longitudinal study.
This is an area where it's complicated and I think we need to rely on psychological studies.
When asked what they want to accomplish with the report, she said, it's just to raise awareness.
We wanted to simulate debate and say this is an area of increasing concern and that it needs to be discussed.
That sounds like absolute horseshit, love.
I don't believe you.
I think you are trying to create a link between cyber violence, which is something that simply cannot exist, and real-world violence from video games, something that we know does not exist.
And you have been completely caught out because you are such fucking buffoons.
Of course, this isn't going to stop them from trying.
Take for example the take back the tech hashtag in conjunction with the what would a feminist internet look like campaigns, something that was clearly doomed to failure, because A, it was run by the same people, and B, everyone is sick of this gender bigotry, which is something you can see by merely taking a look at these hashtags and seeing what the most popular tweets on them are.
Unless I'm completely misreading this, and it turns out that three in four women on the internet have actually died from reading cyber violence on Twitter.
The loss of these hashtags was heralded with the opening of many assault mine on the internet.
Today, Friday the 9th of October 2015, Misoyanists, trolls and a variety of people who associate with the Gamergate hashtag decided to occupy and corrupt the Take Back the Tech and Imagine a Feminist Internet hashtags by posting thousands of anti-feminist and misogynist tweets and memes.
This attack is the response to a tweet chat organized by the Internet Governance Forum, the best practice forum on countering online violence and abuse, to discuss the impact of such violence.
The volunteer who was organizing the tweet chat also received an email in her personal inbox declaring the launch of the attack to destroy the campaign.
The online attack against feminist activism online, obviously, is deliberate, planned, and coordinated, and is only one example of the attack that feminists face online.
Ha! Clifford Hero!
Holy shit.
It's just, it's like the Nazis all over again.
Today's cyber attack by the trolls, the trolls, they're not even human now, emphasize more than ever that feminists and activists need to respond swiftly to online violence.
Our organizations, movements, and allies need to support the digital security of women's rights defenders online.
More than ever, we need to take back the tech and imagine a feminist internet.
As individual activists and members of various social justice activists, okay, we call on you to do the following.
Report abusive accounts to Twitter.
Well, duh.
None of these accounts were abusing you, though, because cyber violence is nonsense.
If you feel so inclined, create alternative accounts to push back against the trolls.
Are you saying create sock puppet accounts?
Because you keep whining that other people are apparently doing this.
I mean, every woman in Gamergate was a sock puppet account, but here you are saying, hey, create a sock puppet account.
I mean, are you going to advocate for doxing shortly?
Reclaim the take back the tech and imagine a feminist internet hashtags.
I wouldn't even bother trying.
I'm really having trouble taking this seriously.
Support the process of documenting instances of online violence against women, and make note of the casualty figures.
Highlight the importance of feminism technology and women's rights online.
Yeah, like the same way a Christian would highlight the importance of Christianity.
Share knowledge of how to end online violence against women.
You don't know how to end it.
Support the take back to tech and our efforts to imagine a feminist internet.
Kind of point three again, isn't it?
Now, I know you might be thinking, well, feminists have become the lol cows of the internet.
You can just do anything and milk them for laughs.
But don't think that they don't have power.
Just because the general public using Twitter or wherever aren't vulnerable to their sexist, racist bullshit, that doesn't mean that there aren't places that are.
Let's have a look at the example of Forbes removing an article arguing the tech industry does not have a diversity crisis.
Well, shortly after it being viewed by almost 20,000 people, the article had been removed.
Now why would they do that?
An article that gets almost 20,000 views in a day, that's not bad.
You wouldn't pull that for those numbers, or at least I wouldn't.
So what exactly is the problem?
Is there some sort of wrong think in the article?
Forbes removed the piece after being hit with a barrage of criticism from readers, including many in the tech industry's movement to hire more women, Hispanics and African Americans.
Well, that explains everything.
The article read, there is no crisis at all in Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley is doing absolutely gangbusters.
There is not a crisis, Silicon Valley is swimming in money and success.
The article went on to argue that people who want to break into the tech industry can do so but must do their part.
That Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, HP, Oracle, Mozilla, Intel, etc. are non-inclusive is laughable.
I believe Silicon Valley is one of the most open, inclusive, welcoming, ideas-driven, brains-fueled regions on the planet.
Well, I think that really sums up everything I need to know about the article, and about Silicon Valley.
Success matters.
What you achieve matters.
The colour of your skin, or the arrangement of your junk, isn't really very important.
On its site, Forbes said the article was removed for violating its terms of service, which includes discrimination.
But the publication has not given any detail beyond that.
Are you saying that not needing diversity is discrimination?
Because that's fucking stupid, Forbes.
Many in tech argued that the article was out of touch and tone deaf.
I was especially taken aback when I read the phrase, anecdotal evidence strongly suggests.
Says, Carissa Romero, partner at Paradigm, a strategy firm that helps tech companies become more diverse.
Really?
So someone who is a partner at a company that's entire business model is trying to get people to become more diverse and get them to pay them for the fucking privilege, says that this is, this article's rubbish.
Look at this one phrase he's used here.
I dislike this.
Out the window the whole fucking thing goes.
Are you fucking kidding me?
The author of the piece said that the reaction involves plenty of name-calling, but few fact-based counter-arguments.
One of the few points that was made is that Silicon Valley companies tend to recruit from a narrow base of schools and should expand their efforts.
A point with which Hall agreed.
The region would likely benefit even more if companies here were to do a better job of reaching beyond these nearby schools.
Not only did Hall not disagree with this, this is not a counter-argument to his original article, which is that Silicon Valley is doing very, very well, there is no crisis there.
But you know what?
Why don't we just get the opinion of more people who have got a vested financial interest in this?
Like Aubrey Blanche, the Global Diversity Program's lead at Atlassian, an enterprise software firm, who defended the piece saying that although Hall's arguments were empirically wrong, except, you know, no one can prove that they're empirically wrong, he was not alone in his opinion in the end.
The article presented an opportunity for tech diversity supporters to engage with those who don't believe a problem exists.
I mean, he's wrong, obviously, because he couldn't possibly be right about diversity not really being a prerequisite to being phenomenally successful.
But, you know, we can use this as a platform to talk to other people about our cult.
It's quite obvious that this is entirely ideological.
Silicon Valley is doing great.
There's no getting around it.
Technology is the way of the future.
There is so much money there.
It's just about being good at your job.
However, people who are not good at their jobs and still want to get into tech to get some of that filthy, filthy lucra need to think of a way of doing it.
They need to come up with some sort of in, which is what diversity is.
It's an ideological way of making money out of other people's hard work.
And as with most ideologies that are held to this kind of esteem, it ends up becoming dogmatic and being applied where there is literally no reason to apply it.
Take for example, a university apologising for holding an event that served Mexican food.
You'd think that anyone concerned with diversity would be thrilled about this, but of course, they instead call it cultural appropriation.
So Clemston University has apologised after at least one student claimed she was offended by an annual Mexican cuisine event held in two of the school's dining halls.
The event named Maximum Mexican included food servers wearing sombreros and several other Mexican-themed decorations.
While the overwhelming response among students was positive on social media, one student took to Twitter to call out the school for being culturally insensitive.
Was this person against diversity or something?
Turns out she's actually in favour of it.
Really, Clemston University and Clemston Prez, I thought your focus was hashtag diversity.
Clemston University issued a tweet the next day to apologise to anyone who was offended.
Fucking why?
What good do you think that's going to do?
Do you think that's going to stop her from whining next time you do something she doesn't like?
The fuck it is.
The same student who called out the college for hosting the event again tweeted after the university issued their apology, thank you to all of the amazing people who stood up to bigotry.
Can't wait for Clemston to see how great real Hispanic culture is.
Well I guess real Hispanic culture doesn't involve Mexican food or anything of the sort.
I mean what the fuck are you on about?
Are you saying Mexicans didn't invent sombreros?
What the fuck is wrong with what they did?
The thing is none of this was uncommon at these universities.
They decorate the dining halls and serve whatever kind of food.
They have Italian, Mexican seafood, midnight breakfast, all this kind of stuff, right?
It's fun, it's stuff to do.
But for the cardinal sin of trying to be diverse, she's got the university apologising and saying that it regrets its flattened cultural view of Mexican culture.
What are you fucking on about?
It's not meant to be a commentary on Mexican culture.
It's meant to be a fun dining experience.
But instead she is busy accusing the university of bigotry.
I can't believe she didn't just flat out accuse them of being racist.
Which is exactly what you'd do if you were, say, a Hispanic man caught masturbating outside an elementary school.
A man arrested for allegedly masturbating outside an elementary school in Florida accused school officials, who called the police, of being racist because he is Hispanic, police reported.
How the fuck did that conversation go?
How did he think that he was going to persuade everyone of this?
Apparently a mother who was at the school's pickup her eight-year-old child alerted school officials to the man's activities outside the school.
Estrada Catalan was in the car next to hers, the woman said.
The parent told school officials that he was masturbating in his car while watching teenage cheerleaders practicing on the school's athletic field.
According to some reports, the parents began yelling, oh my god, oh my god, causing him to pull up his pants and drive away from the school.
I mean, what did he say to them?
He was like, no, no, no, they weren't like, oh my god, oh my god, he's whacking off to school kids.
Instead, what happened is the mothers were like, oh my god, oh my god, here's a beaner in our country.
Quick, someone contact Donald Trump, and the officials were like, sorry, the police are the best we can do.
This is though, by far the best bit.
The accused man initially told the police he assumed the people who had called the police on him did not like Hispanics.
But the police informed him that those same people were in fact themselves Hispanics.
Nice try though, buddy.
So after we get past the diversity issues involved in arresting this guy, we get to the crux of the issue, that he was jerking it to a bunch of kids.
Now like you, I can hear the distant sound of Salon.com offering this man a writing contract.
But the thing is they haven't even stopped to find out if this guy's a priest.
Say the priest who is suspended after defending paedophilia in a TV interview.
So an Italian Catholic priest was suspended after defending paedophilia during a television interview.
The Reverend said that he understands paedophilia as an attempt by children to find affection.
He told Italy's LA7 television channel, I've been to lots of schools and I know children.
Oh dear.
Unfortunately there are children who seek affection because they don't receive it at home and I understand that some priests can give up.
Pedophilia is a sin and like all sins to be accepted.
Are you saying that the onus is on the children and that the priests are in fact the victims?
Because the priests here have no agency whatsoever do they?
To the church's credit they didn't tolerate this kind of nonsense which is more than I can say for social justice.
And so we come to the final stupid events of last week and before we do you may be wondering well where is the migrant crisis?
That's been pretty fucking stupid and I agree it has and it's been so bloody stupid it's going to get a video of its own shortly after this one.
So anyway Meryl Streep decided that she would star in a film about the suffragettes which you would think wouldn't be offensive to feminists.
You'd be wrong.
She wore a t-shirt that you can see here.
I'd rather be a rebel than a slave.
Something that actually does offend me.
The idea that women were slaves before they were given the right to vote really pisses me off.
I mean by that logic children are slaves.
By that logic foreign visitors who are not citizens are slaves.
But anyway, you would think that modern feminists would see Meryl Streep doing a historical drama about women fighting for the right to vote and they'd be thrilled.
Fucking pure feminist cinema.
What could they possibly complain about?
Her t-shirt!
Of course it's her fucking t-shirt!
Damn Meryl!
Streep facing hearts criticism over t-shirt declaring I'd rather be a rebel than a slave.
The suffragette star is catching heat for donning the insensitive slogan on the cover of Time Out London while promoting this film.
Insensitive slogan!
I would rather be a rebel than a slave.
What is insensitive about that?
I actually had to sit down and think, right, okay, what could they be complaining about?
You know, this is about empowerment.
This is about not just submitting to the status quo of, in a feminist mind, being a fucking slave.
You know what?
couldn't figure it out on my own I actually had to go in and look to see what they were offended about because I just couldn't I couldn't see it So the full line is a quote from Emmeline Pankhurst, the British women's rights activist street plays in the forthcoming film.
Know that women, once convinced that they are doing what is right, that their rebellion is just, will go on, no matter what the difficulties, no matter what the dangers, so long as there is a woman alive to hold up the flag of rebellion.
I would rather be a rebel than a slave.
Yes, that's fucking insane.
That is exactly the kind of crazy rhetoric I would have thought would have had feminists on their feet applauding.
And I guess the makers of the film and the producer of the t-shirt thought so as well.
But they don't understand modern feminism.
Source material aside, it's pretty poor uptakes to be wearing a shirt that not only ignores the historical context of the term slave, but to quote Shaneen Jiao over at the Mary Sioux.
God, why would you do that?
Seems to reproduce the same lack of intersectionality that was present in Pankhurst's time.
Fucking why would you have to do this?
Fucking ridiculousness.
How does this ignore the historical context of the word slave?
I mean at this point black slavery was over.
I'd say maybe they think that white people were never slaves but that would be fucking moronic too.
It certainly seems like something the film's PR team should have picked up on given that the movie has already been criticized for its lack of diversity.
Not to mention Street's refusal to label as a feminist.
Have you considered this is why she doesn't want to label herself as a feminist?
Are you actually complaining about this?
Are you actually saying that the past isn't actually modern and progressive enough for us?
Because if that's the case, spoilers!
None of it is you fucking idiots!
Just look at this ridiculous shit.
Invoking the word slavery as a white woman is insensitive at best.
Are you seriously saying that that is a word that white women can't say?
I'd rather exaggerate my oppression than acknowledge yours.
What are you talking about?
Or I'd rather be a rebel than a slave because you know, slaves had so many choices.
Seriously, do you think that slaves never rebelled against their condition?
Slavery wasn't implemented by God, you fucking idiots.
Slavery was implemented by other human beings.
And therefore it was possible to fight back.
Another word for this would be empowerment.
Sorry, Meryl, but these two black ladies are the real suffragettes.
Because there were no white suffragettes at all.
As you can already see, there is a general atmosphere of retardation surrounding this suffragettes film, which, in retrospect, I should have predicted.
Of course, feminists were going to get retarded about a historical fucking drama regarding what they consider to be proto-feminists.
I guess what I wasn't really expecting is protesters interrupting the suffragette film premiere on the red carpet.
I mean, of all the films to interrupt.
But I mean, look at those colours, green and purple.
Maybe these are Gamergate protesters.
Maybe these are Gamergate protesters protesting this for some reason that I can't really explain.
Of course, it wasn't Gamergate.
It was an annoying first world feminist group called Sisters Uncut that decided to interrupt the red carpet presentation of a suffragettes film to protest cuts to domestic violence services, apparently.
Members say they are using suffragette methods to declare that, as long as violence against women continues, the battle for women's liberation has not yet been won.
Then if that is the criteria, it will never be won.
And for some reason they also say, dead women can't vote.
What an astounding observation.
But let me observe something if I may.
The people who made this film, the actors, the actresses, the producers, the place hosting this film, is not responsible for cuts to domestic violence services.
In fact, they are probably ideologically opposed to such a thing.
Why aren't you protesting at, say, I don't know, David Cameron's speech at the Conservative Party conference that was happening the very same fucking day.
And they are actually the people who are making these cuts.
You fucking idiots!
You're just such fucking halfwits.
I can't believe you exist.
I can't believe you were the strongest sperms to reach the eggs.
I can't believe you somehow managed to get through nine months of gestation inside another human being.
And I can't believe you survived the push out into the real world and then got through innumerable number of viruses to reach adulthood and become the single most pathetic group of human beings to have ever existed.
I can't believe this series of events happened.
You are fucking ridiculous.
The ridiculousness doesn't stop there though.
Janelle Brown from Sisters Uncut says, We believe that all women facing domestic violence should be able to access support and safety.
Great.
What does this have to do with this fucking film?
Samantha Masters, a support worker from a specialist South Asian refuge, said, I'm here because I'm angry about cuts to specialist services.
Okay, but is this really the place to do the protesting?
So I guess the question is, did anyone give a shit?
Were any feathers rustled?
Was the establishment metaphorically awakened by cold water in their faces?
The answer is no.
This was effectively preaching to the fucking choir.
Helena Bonham Carter told Newsbeat she'd never had a protest happen at one of her film premieres before, but thought it was fantastic.
I think this is exactly what our film is about.
It's about if you've got something that you feel passionately about and feel that there's an injustice being done, to protest and be heard.
Well, you've been heard inside of an echo chamber.
No one's on the other side of this.
No one cares what you've said, and it's not going to change any of the cuts that are being made to the services you're trying to protect.
Well done, idiots.
I love how they sound like such middle-class girls as well.
All we wanted to do is disrupt the premiere and highlight the cuts, and I think we did that successfully.
We're really exhilarated with the response, and we're really happy that we've got a lot of attention for this.
Brilliant.
What did the government say?
A government spokesman said, violence against women and girls in any form is unacceptable and the government has shown its commitment to ending it.
You got a fucking platitude.
They don't care.
They don't give a fuck.
They're not going to do anything.
The manifesto of Sisters Uncuts is highly amusing.
Here's part of it.
To those in power, our message is this.
Your cuts are sexist.
Your cuts are dangerous, and you think you can get away with them because you have targeted people who you perceive as powerless.
Well, I hate to be the one who tells you this, Princess.
But you've done nothing to the Conservatives.
You have exercised no power over them.
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