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Oct. 30, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
21:50
This Week in Stupid (30⧸10⧸2016)
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Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 30th of October 2016.
As you may tell by my voice, I am rather hungover today, and we will be exploring the question, how many layers of postmodernism are you on?
Sexual harassment in virtual reality feels all too real.
It's creepy beyond creepy.
Before I carry on for the record, I just want to point out that there will be a time when The Guardian is fruit that is hanging too low for me to pick, and that time is fast approaching.
Anyway, striding through the snow-covered fortress, shooting zombies with her bow and arrow, Jordan Bellamere felt like a god, right up until the moment someone named Big Bro442 decided to virtually rub her chest and make her feel like just another powerless woman.
Uh-huh.
Maybe you should leave Big Bro442 to their own devices and go and play on another server.
I'm going to be honest, I'm not really interested in reading an entire article about your fucking feelings, and I'm simply not interested in something that happened to you in a video game.
And this is based on the idea that I believe that someone named Big Bro442 happened to come up and do this, which unfortunately I don't, because this sounds like the most contrived feminist story I have ever heard.
But carry on.
Even when I turned away from him, he chased me around, making grabbing and pinching motions near my chest.
She wrote in a medium post of her experience playing Qui VR, a virtual reality game.
Emboldened, he even shoved his hand towards my virtual crotch and began rubbing.
Why exactly did you not shoot this troll with your virtual bow and arrow?
The question really is, why is the Guardian reporting on this?
They say sexual harassment has been a feature of online and gaming communities from the earliest days of the internet.
A feature.
Not a problem.
A feature.
un-fucking-believable, Guardian.
You are just, you are honestly just the worst thing on the internet.
there is nothing so awful that you won't print just i mean you are saying by this being a feature and not a problem in these communities that the communities themselves are directly complicit in all of this That support this.
It's one of the reasons that they are there in these spaces.
You are fucking ludicrous.
And they of course ask, and what will we do when virtual abuse feels as real as a physical assault?
The answer is nothing.
I don't care how it feels to you.
I care what actually happens to you.
If you are not actually physically assaulted, then I am not interested in how you feel about your non-physical assault.
I can't put that any more plainly, I don't think.
And I don't think anyone else should give a damn either.
You were not physically assaulted.
That is where the story ends.
Except my dudes, of course, it carries on.
More than two decades ago, Julian Bibble chronicled the very real emotional fallout from a rape that took place in a text-based, multi-user dimension known as Lambda Moo.
The rape involved one user hijacking the system to write sentences describing sexual acts involving other users' avatars.
Nobody's touched, Dibble wrote in The Village Voice.
And yet, to the victims, the violation was real.
Post-traumatic tears were streaming down her face.
A real-life fact that should suffice to prove that the word's emotional content was no mere play acting.
Okay.
Okay, I think I can actually adequately simulate this so we can get a feel for exactly how awful these acts were.
Tragic, I'm sure we can all agree, and I hope this victim gets all the help they deserve, possibly in a padded cell with restricted internet access.
I am not interested in hearing these solb stories.
And you might be thinking, well, you're being remarkably unsympathetic there.
Why don't you listen and believe to their stories?
And I will tell you why, because it's not my problem.
I'm not doing this, and I'm not interested in any of this nonsense.
And you might think, well, that's just you.
I mean, there are other people who care, and yes, there are other people who care, and that is the problem.
There are moral busybodies who will try to use this as a reason to gain control of these things.
They will say, no, you have to have this.
You must do this, or you are responsible for the abuse of women.
When no abuse has happened, they will make demands, and these demands will be satisfied by people who are too afraid to say no, lest their character and reputation be ruined.
Of course, since you're watching this, you're probably familiar with these kinds of bullies, so I won't bore you with it any further.
So summarising the rest of this, Jesse Fox, an Ohio State University professor who researches the social implications of virtual worlds, says this is basically the same as real rape.
In fact, this opens the door to a new level of violation.
And on top of that, it adds another level of shock by destroying the user's sense of immersion in the virtual world.
But thankfully, the developers of the game are complete white knights, and they decided to include an expanded personal bubble that they will believe prevent future gropings.
No, no, future virtual gropings.
I felt irritated and frustrated and helpless on her behalf, said Stanton.
Just imagining and putting myself in that position.
It lasted with me.
Yes, you were also virtually raped, Stanton.
Something must be done.
The pair came up with the idea of a power gesture, a physical movement a player can make within the game to activate their personal bubble as if it were a superpower.
It's active re-empowerment, something that they can do to reclaim power from themselves with a strong visual component that clearly transacts power back to them.
And of course, I absolutely love this feature.
It's so innovative and powerful, said Bellamire, the person who's whining about this.
Well, thank fuck.
I am so glad this first world problem has been solved.
Since I'm on the subject, has anyone used any of these VR headsets?
I'm genuinely tempted to get one, but if they're pretty bullshit, I'm not going to bother.
And they're quite expensive, so I don't want to take the risk.
Anyway, let's add another layer of postmodernism.
Muhammad was a feminist.
No, he wasn't.
You were a fucking idiot.
I'm going to try and read all of this in one take with a straight face.
The Prophet Muhammad would be appalled by how current Islamic fundamentalists are treating women under their control.
This suppression is done in the name of Islamic law known as Sharia, but the current suppression of women is shaped by cultural and history.
Okay.
It has little basis in the Quran and is certainly not consistent with anything we know about what Muhammad taught or how he treated women.
Of all the founders of the great religions, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Islam, and Judaism, Muhammad was easily the most radical and empowering in his treatment of women.
Arguably, he was history's first feminist.
This is of critical importance, because if there is one single thing that Arabs and Muslims could do to reform and revitalise their crisis-ridden cultures, it would be to liberate their women and provide them with the full rights women are enjoying in more and more countries around the world.
Women's equality is key to a real Arab spring.
Women are being suppressed by Sharia law, which, unlike the author's claims of it having little basis in the Quran, is directly drawn from the Quran, which is apparently Muhammad's perfect revelations to mankind.
So, to suggest that Muslims do not understand their own religion is fucking arrogant, to say the least, and just willfully blind also.
And just so I'm clear, Sharia law codifies the second class status of women.
There is no doubt that it is from this, and there is no doubt they are drawing it from the Quran.
He says that in comparison to the founders of the other great religions, Muhammad was fundamentally different.
He both explicitly taught the radical equality of women and men as a fundamental tenet of true spirituality, and he took numerous concrete measures to profoundly improve the status and role of women in Arabia during his own lifetime.
Muhammad was sensitized to the plight of women because he was born poor and orphaned at an early age.
He was also illiterate.
He knew as few did what poverty and social exclusion meant.
Almost everything about this paragraph is total horseshit.
From the idea that Muhammad taught about the fundamental equality of men and women, or the idea that he was sensitized to the plight of women because he was born poor and orphaned, or that few people in tribal Arabia knew what poverty and social exclusion meant.
He goes on to say that during 7th century Arabia, female infanticide was commonplace.
Muhammad abolished it.
A saying in the Hadith records that Muhammad said that the birth of a girl was a blessing.
Women in Arabia at the time were essentially considered property and had absolutely no civil rights.
Muhammad gave them the right to own property and they were extended very important marital and inheritance rights.
How kind of Muhammad.
All this shows is how backwards pre-Islamic Arabia was.
Everywhere else surrounding pre-Islamic Arabia had all of these things.
Women did not live in this kind of subjection, and so Muhammad's improvements probably did seem like a great step up, but that was 1,400 years ago, and now they seem like a very great leap backwards.
And I will show you.
Prior to Muhammad, the dowry paid by a man for his bride was given to her father as part of the contract between the two men.
Women had no say in the matter.
Muhammad declared that women needed to assent to the marriage and the dowry should go to the bride, not the father.
Furthermore, she could keep the dowry even after marriage.
Do you know what this means?
This means Muhammad's laws are now as advanced as the laws of Hammurabi.
Seriously, Muhammad's laws are now as advanced as Mesopotamian laws that were created in about 1750 BC.
Anyway, the wife did not have to use the dowry for family expenses.
That was the responsibility of the man.
Women were also given the right to divorce their husbands, something unprecedented at the time.
And in the divorce, the woman was empowered to take the dowry with her.
Again, that's what Hammurabi did.
But this is not simply a woman having a right to divorce, because to divorce her husband in Islam, the husband has to consent.
If he doesn't agree, she gets no divorce.
I mean, that doesn't sound especially feminist to me, but what would I know?
I'm not a feminist.
Muhammad himself was often seen doing women's work around the house, and was very attentive to his family.
My god, he was a beta cuck.
His first marriage to Khadijah was monogamous for the entire 15 years they were married, something rare in Arabia at the time.
By all accounts, they were deeply in love, and Khadijah, in fact, was the first convert to Islam.
She encouraged Muhammad from the very first encounter with the angel Gabriel and the recitation of the first surahs that were to become the Quran.
It's not real, you fucking idiots.
From his claims of an encounter with the angel Gabriel.
But anyway, I think that sounds rather traditionalist.
I mean, isn't the institution of marriage used to oppress women?
After Khadijah's death, Muhammad married 12 wives.
So he's oppressing 12 women.
Brilliant.
That's so feminist.
One was Aisha, the daughter of his closest friend and ally Abu Bakr.
Yes.
And she was six.
And the marriage was consummated when she was nine.
I imagine that makes him a very good feminist, and I find it odd that you left that out.
I wonder why.
I wonder if that fact might turn people off of the idea of Muhammad being some progressive, selfless, saintly prophet.
The rest were nearly all widows, divorced women, or captives, which I'm sure is incredibly feminist.
I bet there was so much consent going on there.
Finally, there is nothing in the Quran about women wearing the veil, the hijab.
That was certainly the custom in Arabia at the time, and Muhammad's wives wore the hijab to designate their special status as mothers of the believers.
God, that just sounds so feminist.
Honestly, the way feminism is going at the moment, I would not be surprised if feminists actually did start calling themselves mothers of the believers.
But the only thing the Quran says directly is that women should dress modestly.
Oh, that's incredibly feminist, isn't it?
That's just really fucking feminist.
Having an ancient religious book by a right-wing traditionalist dictate to all women in society how they can dress and what they can do with their bodies.
That's so incredibly feminist.
That explains all of these Islamic slut walks that we keep seeing.
Here we have an Islamic slut walk in Bradford, England, if you're wondering, and I can translate those signs for you.
They say, no means no, and just because I'm covered up doesn't mean I consent.
And my dowry, my body.
As you can see, Bradford is a very progressive city.
But don't worry, Muhammad was equally as oppressive to men.
He said, modesty of dress was expressive of modesty of the heart.
Muhammad himself, even when he was supreme leader, never wore anything more than a simple woollen attire.
You realise you're talking about a militant cult leader who took over the entire area, conquering everyone and butchering tribes who resist him.
He's just such a nice guy, just dress modestly, and he won't kill you.
You can't say fairer than that.
I'm sorry, but I just do not see how anyone who is even vaguely progressive or liberal can even suggest that Muhammad was in any way progressive or liberal.
To call him a feminist is just the most crazy thing I've ever heard, just because he wasn't necessarily in favour of women entirely getting screwed.
I mean, it's just that it was just too bad even for Muhammad, a man who was willing to fuck a nine-year-old.
It was just too bad for him.
Imagine how bad that must have been.
Oh, what a fucking feminist.
Let's add another layer of postmodernism.
Students pick Zane Malik to celebrate Black History Month.
I didn't know who Zane Malik was before this, so I'm glad they provided a picture.
And he's not black.
But believe it or not, I'm not actually very surprised by this.
And it's things like this that really do make it sound like the alt-right have a point when they say diversity is a code word for anti-white.
This is what they're talking about.
And if you want to make what they're saying legitimate, then carry on doing exactly what you're doing.
That's how you make what they are saying true.
The Student Union of Kent University had included the pop star Zane Malik and Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, in its lineup of noteworthy public figures to celebrate diversity for Black History Month.
This was, of course, criticized on Twitter by Black History Month organisers, who tweeted that they were disappointed about this, just as I am disappointed about Twitter being a source of news these days.
And the union obviously issued an unreserved apology saying it had mistakenly attempted to celebrate a range of ethnic cultures and that its officials would meet with the African Caribbean Society to apologise further.
And I am honestly serious and I'm sure that progressive people, people who would support the idea of Black History Month, don't intend for that to be used in that way.
You know, I'm sure they do not intend to have everything bundled into the category of non-white, which is what they identify in this article.
They literally say you have the audacity to try and bundle all non-white culture into Black History Month.
And that's exactly the point.
This isn't about celebrating black history, which is why they chose non-black people.
This has become a culture war against what they see as non-white culture versus white culture.
And if you are on the outside of this, looking in like the alt-right, it is perfectly rational to think of this as an attack on white people.
Because it seems to be an attack on white people, on white culture.
And so, what rational person can do otherwise than agree with them when they point this out and say that when you say diversity, what you mean is no white people.
That's literally what they say, and that literally is what it looks like to you.
And I am literally just sat here going, right, okay, I can't believe you might actually have an insidious agenda to get rid of white people, but it really fucking looks like it.
You just really look like that's what you're doing.
And I'm sure you don't mean to look like that, but I swear to fucking God, you do.
Look at this.
Confusion about the ethnic backgrounds covered by Black History Month celebrations appears to have been widespread.
Leeds University Union says on its website that it would celebrate and enjoy diverse black history.
From Africa, okay, to Asia.
What?
Latin America, okay, that's slavery.
The Arab nations, okay, slavery with castration.
And the Middle East, yes, more slavery and castration.
What what are you celebrating?
What are you doing?
What is this?
Why would you then have Arab people?
These slavers?
In your mind, surely.
I mean, why would you do this?
What are you doing?
None of this makes sense unless this is just simply against white Western culture.
And it's the same with Birmingham University and Sussex University.
Why are they all so consistent on this point?
But anyway, like I said, this is what the alt-right are saying to people, and that's why people are believing it.
That's why people are listening, that's why the alt-right is growing, man.
And then you have something as stupid as the Southern Poverty Law Center putting out a field guide to anti-Muslim extremists, including Majid Nawaz.
A Muslim reformer, a liberal Muslim reformer, who is a mainstream liberal Muslim reformer, who is fighting against the political ideology of Islam, which is manifested in militancy and terrorism, and not in the religious expression of Islam.
And if you are saying that they are one in the same thing, then Islam is a really big fucking problem, isn't it?
Majid is not saying that they are one in the same.
In fact, he is saying they are distinct.
In his mind, you can be a practicing religious Muslim and not a political activist for Islam.
And if you're saying that Majid Nawaz is anti-Muslim by being anti-Islam, then you are saying that there is no difference between the religious and political expression of Islam.
In which case, we have to prohibit it, because we do not want to live in theocracy.
We operate in a secular system.
Islam, therefore, is not compatible with the West.
That is not what I am saying, Southern Poverty Law Center.
That is what you are saying.
So in response to the actions and statements of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, I say, good point, well made, fellow.
Nice to see you're voting Trump.
Honestly, I really don't know enough about Majid Nawaz to want to debate the man's history, but it doesn't surprise me that he may have had a patchy one given that he was an Islamic extremist.
But anyway, as far as I am aware, Majid Nawaz is advocating for British liberal values.
I agree with these values, and I think that it would be a good idea to try and secularise Islam to whatever extent is possible.
This is not anti-Muslim.
This is anti-Islamist.
There is a distinction.
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