Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - This Week in Stupid (29⧸11⧸2015)

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Nov. 29, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

28:19

This Week in Stupid (29⧸11⧸2015)

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	Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 29th of November 2015.
	If you have anything you'd like to see on this week in Stupid, please tweet using hashtag TWIS or post to our Sargon of Akkad with that same tag.
	This week has been a very interesting week and I'm going to be in with the actual issues that actually matter.
	Turkey shoots down Russian military jet over Syrian border.
	Uh-oh, you done did it now.
	So Turkey shot down a Russian military jet which it says violated its airspace near the Syrian border.
	A military official quoted by Turkey's Dogen news agency said the plane was shot down by Turkish F-16s and the pilots were given repeated prior warning.
	Russia has confirmed that they were Russian planes but has denied that they were given any advanced warning and they've also denied that they were in Turkish airspace at all and they've also denied that the plane was shot down by F-16s and claimed that it was shot down by artillery fire from the ground.
	I mean as trustworthy as I find Russia and Turkey when it comes to these matters I simply don't know who to believe.
	It's entirely possible that Russia is lying and that this was a deliberate provocation by the Russians in order to create an international incident and shake up Turkey's relations with NATO.
	However, that two Russian planes have come into your airspace does not automatically justify shooting them down.
	Despite their history, Turkey and Russia are currently not enemies.
	They are currently, theoretically, on the same side because at the moment, Russia is in the Middle East on operations against ISIS.
	It's very clear, very public, everyone knows about this, so you would expect mistakes to be made and it's entirely possible that these Russian planes were simply off course, assuming they were ever even in Turkish airspace to begin with.
	So simply escorting them out without shooting them down would have been a much more practical and sensible solution.
	Especially since the Russian planes were in Turkish airspace apparently for 17 seconds.
	17.
	I mean that's, I'm impressed, I'm genuinely impressed at how punctual the Turkish military is.
	I mean that was a really swift response.
	But okay, what's done is done.
	You can't undo the past, so all Turkey need to do is simply apologise and we can all move on.
	Or we could turn around and tell the Russians to fucking swivel on it, which appears to be what Turkey is deciding to do.
	I don't know whether Turkey was expecting Putin to just take this lying down or something, but he obviously wasn't going to.
	So he's announced Russian sanctions against Turkey.
	These include official restrictions on imports of some Turkish goods and a ban on charter flights between the two countries and an end to Russian tour operators selling trips to Turkey.
	This is really important and I'll explain why in a minute.
	It's also said that Turkish companies operating in Russia and Turkish staff employed by Russian companies will face restrictions and ordered the government to prepare a list of goods, businesses and jobs that would be affected.
	Russia is Turkey's second largest trading partner and more than 3 million Russian tourists visited Turkey last year.
	Honestly, giving Russia a perfectly reasonable just cause to attack the Turkish economy is so fucking stupid because Russia is totally capable of doing serious harm to the Turkish economy.
	Tourism accounts for almost 11% of the Turkish economy and out of the tourists who go to Turkey every year a very large share of them were Russian and now they won't be going to Turkey.
	This is money Turkey desperately needs as it uses the tourism income to offset its deficit spending.
	Removing Russian tourist money from the equation means that Turkey's debts are going to grow much faster than they otherwise would have done, or they're going to have to take measures to reduce their own deficit.
	But not only that, a further $6 billion per year comes into Turkey's economy through what is called the suitcase trade.
	This is foreign tourists coming over, buying Turkish goods, packing them up into a suitcase, and taking them home to be sold in their home markets.
	They obviously don't get taxed by the government, but it is still money coming into the Turkish economy.
	However, this is going to end.
	Or at least this is going to be heavily impacted, because Russian tourists are one of the major participants in the suitcase trade.
	Now, I know that I am just a layman, with a deep and abiding love of two things, history and grand strategy games.
	So there may well be factors that I am simply not aware of when it comes to trying to evaluate what we know publicly of this situation.
	But I cannot see any benefit to Turkey from any of this.
	And I cannot see any drawback to Russia for any of this.
	And it's well known that Odogan is a total asshole.
	But that can't possibly be the reason that he has said he doesn't want to harm relations with such an important trading partner and has asked a meeting with Putin, but refuses to apologize to get that meeting.
	I mean, how much skin off his nose would this really be?
	But fuck it, it's just Russia.
	What have they been doing for anyone?
	Oh yeah.
	They've been fighting the war on terror, you know, the war on terror that the Americans have started and decided they're not going to finish.
	They've in fact been showing up the West, which to the point where we have actually had to follow Russian initiative, making the Russians look like the big damn heroes in this situation.
	And now Turkey has acted in a legitimately unreasonable way to what was quite easily passed off as an innocent mistake by Russia, assuming that Turkey isn't lying out of its fucking ass.
	And it's important to remember that Odogan is not going to defeat Vladimir Putin in the great game.
	Putin said, we view the US-led coalition with respect and stand ready to cooperate with it.
	We believe that we would better create a single united coalition as it would be easier, simpler, and more efficient to coordinate our work that way.
	If our partners aren't ready for that, okay.
	We are ready to work in a different format that is acceptable to our partners.
	We are ready to cooperate with the US-led coalition.
	The narrative that Putin has crafted with all of this is brilliant.
	It is impeccable.
	There is nothing that the Russians can really be accused of having done wrong.
	In fact, they are fighting terrorists.
	They are fighting those people who decided to massacre 130 or so people in Paris.
	The French, who are now working closely with them, probably really appreciate Russian assistance.
	So what's Turkey been up to?
	Well, back last year it turns out that an ISIS fighter was claiming that Turkey was funding them.
	And then in May this year, Turkey and Saudi Arabia alarm the West by backing Islamist extremists the Americans had bombed in Syria.
	And then in July, senior Western official, links between Turkey and ISIS are now undeniable.
	Look at this from September 2014.
	The state sponsors of ISIS, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, why are they no subject to sanctions?
	Well, they're not now.
	They're not now.
	Russia has again stepped up and taken the lead and done the right thing in sanctioning state sponsors of terrorism.
	Well done, Turkey.
	This is the most bizarre thing in the world.
	This seems to be a contrived effort by the Turkish government to make Vladimir Putin look like a good guy.
	Honestly, I'm really looking forward to the comments where someone can explain to me why Turkey is so happy to shoot itself in the fucking foot to make Vladimir Putin look cool.
	And understandably, this is getting people worried.
	Are we careening toward World War III?
	To the point where World War III becomes a trending topic on Twitter.
	Yeah, that's when you know something serious.
	It's when it's trending on Twitter.
	Be not, I'm not worried.
	Turkey's a part of NATO.
	NATO is effectively being run by America.
	And they are going to protect everyone from the consequences of their own actions.
	And they're going to do this with the power of diversity.
	Think campus PC is out of control?
	Look at the military.
	It turns out that even the millennials who fight wars don't want to hear bigoted jokes.
	Oh, good god.
	The US military actually has procedures for dealing with conflicts over teen identity politics that apparently can be far more intrusive than any university faculty training on microaggressions.
	A fascinating example is a chart from June 2000 Army Handbook on the threat of hate groups in the ranks entitled Extremist to Tattoo Decision Support Matrix.
	This is about a serious subject but is delightfully absurd.
	Basically all the caution and nervousness in say competing university memos about racist Halloween costumes is rendered in the stilted formality of military language and broken down into a multi-step process.
	The problem the Matrix is meant to solve is what to do if your soldier appears to have a racist tattoo.
	Marvelous.
	Apparently the Army Handbook sounds a lot like stuff you'd read in a freshman sensitivity course at Liberal Arts College.
	We as adults recognise the male pronoun as a generalization, but unless we stop using it it is all children will hear.
	Oh fucking hell, come on.
	It highlights military specific problematic behaviour from white males, calling minorities and women by their first names while addressing the majority members males by their titles or rank, or just pandering directly to their feelings.
	Hot buttons will always cause an emotional reaction in those who are offended.
	Leaders who use such terms are labelled as uncaring or lacking in sensitivity for their soldiers.
	A soldier who hears the hot buttons might take them out of context, failing to hear the complete message and take offense when none was intended.
	Well what are they going to do?
	Complain that this war zone isn't a safe space?
	Complain that their commanding officers' microaggressions has given them PTSD?
	I mean correct me if I'm wrong but I was always under the impression that we were training soldiers to be professional killers.
	But I guess I mean we wouldn't want them being offended by their sergeant saying the wrong thing.
	But I suppose that a war zone is nothing compared to the cyber violence that women in the West have to deal with.
	For example this particular woman, apparently a BBC journalist, which I didn't even realize they still had those, who received abuse on Twitter after she said she didn't want children.
	Now you might be thinking, wow, you don't sound very sympathetic to that.
	And I don't.
	I really don't.
	It's the words on Twitter.
	I'm even more annoyed that the BBC is paying, using my license fee, for a security guard to protect some woman who apparently is having a Twitter spat with a bunch of people.
	So after an article about her simply not wanting to have kids went online, she was apparently met with vitriolic abuse that was so, so bad she was forced to deactivate her Twitter account and had to be met and escorted to her car from the building by a security guard because they actually thought someone might try to do something.
	She said there's no escape from it.
	It's all across social channels.
	In my work email and personal email, I got a message from LinkedIn.
	If we actually look at some of the things that are being reported on me, many were supportive, both men and women saying they felt the same way.
	So it's not all hatred, not all cyber violence that was being thrown at her.
	One of the linked examples here is horrible, self-righteous, don't give a toss about anyone else woman.
	Oh, that's terrible.
	That's terrible.
	That's awful abuse.
	One man said he wouldn't want to have sex with me, except he was far less polite about it.
	Are you saying that you got like an anti-rape threat?
	You got someone who was like, no, I'm never going to rape you.
	Never.
	Here's a random tweet by someone saying that they've been blocked.
	What a complete media whore.
	Next week she'll be on Loose Women wanting the NHS to fund a personality transplant.
	This isn't entirely fair as she was asked to write the story, not the other way around.
	But this really isn't the worst cyber violence that anyone could be subjected to, is it?
	People saying, you don't seem like a very nice person.
	I don't really like you, and I'm certainly not going to have sex with you.
	But this is my favourite part of this melodrama.
	Most of it washes over you, but the one that disturbed me most was a man saying he'd like to crowdfund an operation to render me physically unable to speak.
	It's always about silencing people.
	This was her melodramatic response to an obviously satirical tweet, where someone has said, toying with the idea of crowdfunding a laryngectomy for Mrs. B. More beneficial to all than any business that could be performed elsewhere.
	It's always about silencing people.
	Ooh.
	She said, the volume of messages I had within half an hour on Twitter, Facebook, email, and Instagram worried me.
	Things I can't repeat and would never say to anyone, no matter what they've done.
	Okay, I mean, it's a good thing you can't repeat them, because then we don't have to see how silly you're going to look when it turns out that they're just regular messages.
	I mean, I think that if you had been receiving threats, you would publicise them, because that's how professional victims work.
	And yeah, a large number of tweets and messages in a short period of time means you've hit on a hot topic.
	People want to talk about the thing you're talking about.
	Apparently though, she has since returned to Twitter, but said she won't be giving the trolls the attention that they crave.
	And so there we have it.
	You've put your ideas and thoughts out on the internet and a lot of people have read them because you used a public platform and they disagree with them and their disagreement with you is trolling.
	And we have seen no evidence for any abuse that has been sent her, just her word.
	But we do have evidence that someone else may have been sending horrible threatening emails.
	Baha Mustafa email account tells Pamela Geller, you deserve to be raped in every hole by hordes of Muslims.
	The email addressed to Ms. Geller and apparently emanating from the official Goldsmiths University email address for Welfare and Diversity Officer Baha Mustafa said, you deserve to be raped in every hole by hordes of Muslims slapping and choking you, spitting in your mouth and pissing in your face.
	Wow, that's quite creative.
	And I'm genuinely impressed at Breitbart's differentiation between Mustafa and her own email account.
	Personally, I would have thought that any emails sent from her email account could quite safely be assumed to be coming from her.
	But that would be an assumption, and Breitbart are correct to say that it's the account that was sent from that is the only information we really have.
	Just because Mustafa's probably the only person with access to her own account, and this doesn't sound like the sort of thing she wouldn't say.
	I mean, that would just be nasty, horrible, unfounded conjecture.
	I mean, just because Mustafa has recently resigned her position as the welfare and diversity officer at Goldsmiths because she was accused of bullying and harassing her colleagues doesn't mean that she's likely to have done this.
	I mean, this doesn't...
	Okay, it does fit a pattern of behaviour, and she does probably think she's entitled to act this way because of her social justice conditioning, but that doesn't mean that we should just assume that the person who has every motive and record of acting this way and is probably the only person with access to her own email account is the person that sent a very vitriolic...
	racist, and sexist diatribe to someone she personally hates.
	There's no reason to assume this at all.
	So since we're on the topic of rape, there has been new guidance issued to all police forces and prosecutors as part of a toolkit to move rape investigations into the 21st century, where men must prove a woman said yes under tough new rape rules.
	Now, this is more misleading than it sounds.
	It sounds as if this is going to be part of the actual criminal trial.
	It's not.
	Thank God.
	But the way this has been presented really does make it sound like this is going to be somehow connected to their trial.
	For example, if you say men accused of date rape will need to convince police that a woman consented to sex as part of a major change in the way sex offences are investigated, that makes it sound as if it's presuming that the man is guilty.
	The director of public prosecution said it was time for the legal system to move beyond the concept of no means no to recognise situations where a woman may have been unable to give consent.
	Personally, I would have thought this would have been fairly self-evident by simply using rational inquiry, but fine, that's actually not as bad as it sounds on the surface.
	The guidance should not only cover situations where someone is incapacitated through drink or drugs, but also where a suspect held a position of power over the potential victim, as a teacher, an employer, a doctor, a fellow gang member.
	Although, this will also mean that situations where, say, female teachers have taken advantage of their students, will also be treated by the police in the same way, theoretically anyway, as men who have had sex with unconscious women.
	At least in theory- Cough, privilege!
	Um, sorry.
	So I think the problem that a lot of people are having with this is that it seems to conflate the act of whether something needs further investigation with the act of being put on trial.
	As far as I'm aware, there is no change to the rape laws in the UK or the way that the trial is handled or whether the person accused is presumed innocent, which they still are.
	I don't know that it won't be the thin edge of the wedge, but so far I've got nothing really to suggest that it will be, so I'm not in direct opposition to these ideas.
	What I am in opposition to is the way that this chap has been treated.
	Do you remember this guy?
	The student who decided that he actually didn't need to be told that rape is bad.
	He actually already knew that, and he wasn't a rapist, so this is not what a rapist looks like.
	That fellow is George Lawler, and campus zealots hound him out of lectures and bars with shouts of rapist after he dare question the effectiveness of rape consent workshops.
	Why is this being allowed?
	Why are universities not punishing the students who are bullying this man?
	The abuse has apparently gotten so bad that he has stopped going to lectures.
	Be no, that doesn't matter.
	That doesn't matter.
	He's just a guy.
	He's just one individual who is having his rights violated.
	But these people are speechless at how someone can undermine such important education that fills a crucial hole in our curriculum.
	Or the irony being that this is exactly the sort of twit who needs to go on a consent course, even though he hasn't raped anyone, so why would he need to?
	But you know, feminists don't take no for an answer.
	Either you go on their consent courses, or they ruin your life.
	Lawler said that there was one guy messaging him on Facebook for over a week, calling him names like racist, rapist.
	I've stopped going to lectures and seminars because of the perceived threat.
	He said he was driven out of a bar in Leamington after some students overheard his friend mention his name.
	These six guys just crowded around me and started shouting at me, calling me a rapist, a misogynist, and threatening me.
	I had to get out of there.
	I don't want to play the victim card, but afterwards I cried.
	I don't really blame you, to be honest, mate.
	That sounds fucking awful.
	Absolutely fucking unjustified.
	No one cares though.
	He didn't get a fucking bodyguard, even though there actually appears to be a physical threat to the guy.
	But maybe we should listen to Spike Lee.
	Female students should go on a sex strike to combat campus rape.
	He thinks that women withholding sex would help curb the abundance of sexual assault and harassment at US colleges.
	Well, I'll stop you there, Mr. Lee.
	There isn't an abundance.
	There's actually a deficit if comparing to the local population surrounding a university campus.
	This is called hysteria for a reason.
	This is amazing.
	I think a sex strike could really work on college campuses where there's an abundance of sexual harassment or date rapes.
	Second semester is going to happen.
	Once people come back from Christmas and stuff jumps off, there's going to be a sex strike in universities and college campuses across this country.
	I feel like I need to explain the concept of rape to him.
	Don't get me wrong, women withholding sex en masse from men is something that has happened multiple times throughout history in order to try and affect public policy.
	I'm not joking, but to try and prevent the act of rape, women have never thought, you know what, we're not going to have sex with our husbands or boyfriends or whoever.
	That's not going to work.
	I mean, clearly, we all know that simply teaching men not to rape is the way forward.
	It's how we're going to prevent rapes on college campuses.
	I mean, I know this is what's called the Dora the Explorer method of rape prevention.
	It's like rape and no raping.
	Raper no raping.
	That's how it works.
	And you know what?
	It seems to have worked.
	There are loads of schools reporting zero sexual assaults on campus.
	But apparently, that doesn't reflect reality that critics say.
	16 Canadian post-secondary schools have received no reports of sexual assault for six years in a row.
	A statistic that critics say should concern administrators as it is likely not representative of the true experiences on campuses.
	But you spent all that time teaching them not to rape.
	And now that these kids don't seem to be sexually assaulting each other, you don't seem to believe that your own actions had that effect.
	I mean, it's almost like you're saying to us that you knew that teaching people to rape wasn't going to be the solution to this problem.
	It's under counting, says Holly Johnson, a University of Ottawa criminology professor who studies violence against women on campuses.
	Referring to the Canadian numbers.
	So someone whose entire career is built around the idea that there is violence against women.
	And, I mean, if there wasn't, what would she be doing?
	It's not counting what is the true experience of students, because there is no campus in which this doesn't exist.
	That's right, Holly.
	What there is actually happening is a conspiracy of silence.
	Everyone is covering up all of these incidents that are happening all the time in co- Canadian Canadian schools and colleges are just hotbeds of rape.
	You just can't, you can't go five minutes without someone being raped.
	And the faculty and staff are also running these rape consent awareness and, you know, they've got all these safe spaces and feminist groups.
	But no, no, no, no.
	None of those are having an effect.
	What's actually happening is there is a secret rape Illuminati on university and college and schools in Canada.
	It's terrible.
	And it's up to you, Holly, to root them out.
	I don't want to sound like a dick about this, but your job depends on it.
	So yeah, you're right.
	There can't possibly be a circumstance or a situation.
	We can't possibly arrive at a day when the methods that you have been advocating for have been effective and there are now no sexual assaults in these schools.
	Can't happen.
	Because if it did happen, why would we need to employ you?
	Don't get me wrong.
	I'm sure that there are still sexual assaults going on at these schools and campuses, and I'm sure that they are actually not being reported for whatever reason.
	But the reason that they're not being reported isn't because there isn't a massive amount of infrastructure to help these people.
	It isn't because there aren't safe spaces.
	There isn't a culture of helping victims.
	We are surely at a point that if someone is sexually assaulted and they don't come forward, then surely it's because they are choosing not to do so.
	There is no stigma attached to it.
	It is in fact something that people want to pay excessive amounts of attention to.
	And honestly, I can see why someone who had been sexually assaulted wouldn't want that kind of attention and focus on the fact that they were assaulted.
	So we finally come full circle with social justice protecting Islam.
	Puppet show suspends performance following racism claims over hijab-wearing puppets.
	That's right.
	It is being claimed, not by Muslims, by progressives, that this puppet show is completely offensive to Muslims and black people.
	In the same way that students at the University of Minnesota are claiming that remembering 9-11 is offensive to Muslims.
	I literally don't have anything to say to that.
	I don't think you'll find a Muslim anywhere that would suggest that.
	I don't even think ISIS would be begrudging of Americans for mourning 9-11.
	I mean, they would doubtless expect it.
	I mean, they might be cheering as the sort of flip side to this coin, but I'm sure that they would be like, well, of course they're going to be remembering a tragedy that happened on their own soil.
	What kind of mania, what kind of self-flagellating cuck wouldn't remember that?
	So this week, I'm going to end on a feminist performance piece that someone sent me about women in gaming.
	Prepare yourself for the cringe.
	How to be a gamer girl in four easy steps.
	One, choose a gender-neutral or masculine username for your online identity.
	The hordes of cisgender, heterosexual, and mostly white men you'll be gaming with are incredibly sensitive to the possibility of a female within their midst and are more likely to consider you part of the scenery than a peer on the battlefield.
	Have you started gaming when you were young, naive, and starry-eyed, and have the misfortune of an unchangeable feminine username like Jigglypuff Sparkle Fairy?
	Prepare your defenses ahead of time.
	At the first question of your gender, tell them you are a lesbian, because in gamer jargon, lesbian is synonymous with man and there's no room to be feminine here.
	Two, become an expert in everything.
	Complete every side quest.
	Earn every achievement.
	Be prepared for any reference or joke.
	Because if you're not, fake gamer girl alert!
	Suddenly, that low-cut shirt you're wearing was not a choice you made because you felt good about your bomb-ass cleavage when you woke up this morning.
	Suddenly, you're a succubus.
	You're only in it for the attention.
	Because what real gamer doesn't know that the skeleton hanging by its ankles from the ceiling of the Bjorn ice caves on the island of Solstheim and the Blood Moon expansion of the Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind was obviously a Star Wars reference?
	Fakey girls!
	Three, be willing to accept the fact that you, yes, you are single-handedly responsible for the degradation of the modern-day gaming industry because you keep demanding better representation for women, even though you already have a diverse selection of skinny, scantily clad, and or heavily sexualized white women to choose from.
	If you want a more feminist, friendly game, try the Mass Effect trilogy.
	It's full of strong female characters.
	Never mind the fact that the first female villain we're introduced to is presented to us with shots of her ass and tits before we ever see her face.
	Remember, ladies, female objectification is a myth.
	Four, get used to fear.
	Watch Anita Sarkeesian's videos criticizing misogyny in video games.
	Watch the death and rape threats roll in.
	Listen in shock as the people you game with claim Zoe Quinn only received recognition for her free online game because she slept with someone who had nothing to do with the media coverage of her free online game.
	Hashtag QuinSpiracy.
	Hashtag Gamergate.
	Hashtag ethics and gaming journalism.
	Watch women speak up.
	Watch women have their personal information revealed online.
	Watch women leave the industry.
	Start gaming quietly.
	And make sure to keep your comments offline because if you don't, you might be next.
	Because after all, you are the one ruining the industry.

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