Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - This Week in Stupid (11⧸06⧸2017)

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June 11, 2017 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

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This Week in Stupid (11⧸06⧸2017)

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	Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 11th of June 2017.
	You might think I'm going to be talking about the British election today, and you'll be right, but I'm not going to focus exclusively on it and I'm going to start with the fun things first.
	According to BuzzFeed, women were over the moon when it seemed that Philip Davies had lost his seat.
	Philip Davies, if you don't know, is an anti-feminist, conservative, MRA British politician.
	He managed to get himself elected to the Women's Inequalities Commission, which they weren't happy about, and so naturally they were thrilled when they thought he had lost his seat.
	Davies is known for advocating for men's rights and talking bills out of Parliament, a process known as filibustering.
	He recently used this tactic to try and block a bill to ratify the Istanbul Convention, a legal framework that aims to combat violence against women, on the grounds that it discriminated against men.
	You know, that's what equality is, not discriminating against either men or women.
	But early Friday morning it was reported that Davies, who had held his seat for 12 years, had lost it to the Labour candidate.
	Cue the ecstatic feminists.
	Philip Davies is a misogynistic toad.
	I won't lie, I'm pretty delighted he lost his seat, one woman said.
	Don't fuck with women, said Abby Tomlinson.
	Jen Selby, a feminist campaigner who was instrumental in the IC change, the group who helped bring about the bill to ratify the Istanbul Convention to Parliament, told BuzzFeed News that she thought it was brilliant that Davies had lost his seat.
	And another one said, good riddance to Philip Davies.
	Women have been waiting long enough for the justice that they deserve when it comes to ending the violence against women.
	And he was someone who held up that process for reasons that are not only ignorant, but misogynistic.
	This couldn't be a better win for women.
	I think you mean feminists, but okay carry on.
	Labour MP David Lammy said, apparently Philip Davies is in trouble in Shipley.
	Couldn't happen to a nicer bloke.
	Women and everyone who isn't a sexist bigot, rejoice.
	I'm not going to bed until I see Philip Davies ruined, tear-stained face and I can set these fireworks off in my hotel room.
	Wait a minute, updates.
	It was initially believed that Davies, who repeatedly tried to block a law that would prevent violence against women, had lost his seat, but in actual fact, he held it.
	Get fucking wrecked.
	Oh well, never mind, but at least their candidates did quite well.
	So high five Jeremy.
	Eh, close enough.
	So now on to the serious stuff.
	Drop hard Brexit plans, leading Tory and Labour MPs tell May.
	As if that was the reason she did so poorly in the election.
	Senior Tory and Labour MPs call on Theresa May to forge a new cross-party approach to Brexit, as fears grow that the Prime Minister's weakness could lead to the imminent collapse of talks on the UK's exit from the European Union.
	Okay, why?
	Why would the talks collapse?
	She's still the Prime Minister, she's still the one dealing with the negotiations.
	What difference does it make to the EU?
	In a dramatic demonstration of May's loss of authority, as a result of Thursday's general election, which stripped her of her Commons majority, the MPs demanded that she, in effect, drop her own Tory hard Brexit plans in favour of a new national consensus that would be endorsed by members from all sides of the House of Commons.
	I don't think she actually has to do this though, does she?
	I mean she is still the Prime Minister, she's gone into a coalition with the DUP, she's still going to be leading the Brexit negotiations.
	Why should she listen to you on this?
	The proposal, if adopted, would throw open the debate on what kind of Brexit the country wants, with just a week to go before May is due to lead the country in formal negotiations with the EU on the terms of the exit.
	And really, that's all this is about.
	The losing parties can smell blood in the water and they think they can get something they want out of this when the public haven't voted for what they want.
	Worse still is that May's strategy is the best strategy to handle these talks, because she is setting herself up in a position of strength to say, look, this is what we want, and this is where we are going to bargain from.
	Corbyn has set himself up in a position where he has practically conceded everything they're going to ask for, so he has got no room with which to ask for anything in return.
	It's like these idiots don't know how negotiations work.
	Going in strong is good for you because it gives you room to compromise.
	If you go in having already compromised, what else will they ask for and on what grounds will you refuse them?
	May went to the country asking for a mandate on Brexit, only to lose her commons majority.
	Yes, May fucked it up.
	Absolutely fucked it up.
	This is such a colossal own goal.
	This will probably get out of the history books as what not to do in political science courses all across the country.
	In an intervention that will alarm the hardline pro-Brexit Tories or the hardline pro-Brexit lefties, don't forget that Brexit was not a partisan issue.
	The former Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt, backed by ex-education secretary Nikki Morgan and other pro-EU Tories, said Brexit could only be agreed and delivered if the Conservative minority government built a cross-party support behind a plan that would unite politicians in the country.
	No, this is you being pro-EU.
	This is you desperately trying to get the result reversed.
	And do not be fooled, ladies and gentlemen.
	There are many, many pro-EU politicians who are actively trying to use this to get us to stay within the European Union.
	This must not happen.
	We have voted against staying the EU.
	We're not voting to remain in the EU just because Theresa May was awful.
	The people who are heavily remain on this issue are circling.
	Former Tory cabinet minister Stephen Dorrell, now chairman of the European Movement, a pro-EU group, said, at the beginning of the general election campaign, Theresa May said she was seeking a mandate to negotiate her sort of Brexit.
	The result denies her a mandate.
	The Prime Minister's version of Brexit was set out in the Conservative Election Manifesto.
	It said sovereignty was a red line and concluded that Britain must withdraw from both the single market and the customs union.
	In doing so, it threatened our economic interests and funding our public services.
	Yeah, but that's not what people objected to, is it?
	It's not that people are saying, oh, you know what, sovereignty is actually something that offends me.
	This is why I reject this manifesto.
	You know what, I don't like economic independence.
	I don't like the fact that we'll have to be outside the single market and just trade with it like the rest of the world does.
	And let's be honest, we're going to get a deal.
	The only question is on what terms.
	And if we want a deal that prohibits freedom of movement, which is what the people of Britain actually want, then we need to go in with strength behind us.
	Let's be clear, Stephen.
	The problem with Theresa May and the reason she didn't get a mandate and a majority is not because of her stance on Brexit.
	The problem with Theresa May was practically everything else.
	You know it, I know it, everyone else knows it.
	Stop peddling this bullshit.
	He then says, more importantly, despite anything the Prime Minister may say, it is essential that Parliament maintains for itself the option of voting for Britain to remain a member of the EU if it becomes clear that this is the best way to secure Britain's national interests.
	Get fucked.
	There is no option for Britain to remain a part of the EU, which is why even Labour have conceded that Britain will be leaving the EU.
	The question is on what terms.
	Now, if you ask the public preference, you can see that 39% of them want a hard Brexit.
	That's a huge number.
	Another 25% of them want some form of soft Brexit, as well as 13% who simply don't know.
	That is a huge number of the country who are not committed to staying in the EU.
	That's only 23%, not even a quarter of the electorate, wants us to stay in the EU now.
	This is not an option.
	We understand that there will come a price for leaving the EU.
	We are willing to pay it.
	We know it's going to cost money.
	We know it's going to be difficult.
	And we know that we will have to muddle through, figure it out, and somehow come out better on the other side.
	And that is just something that the British people feel that they could manage.
	And that speaks to a vast well of self-confidence in them, doesn't it?
	And I think it's very interesting that 74% of Leave voters expected a hard Brexit, with another 9% who didn't know.
	Well, Brexit will go ahead.
	I'm pretty certain of that.
	I mean, after all, 85% of people voted for pro-Brexit parties.
	One of the reasons Corbyn managed to hoover up those UKIP votes, he made it clear in the manifesto that Labour supports Brexit.
	Having said that, do I think, now, today, that we're going to get the kind of Brexit that most of the voters thought they were going to get?
	I think that's in peril.
	And I agree.
	It seems that there are indeed anti-Brexit forces at work trying to use this opportunity to get the UK to stay within the EU.
	And I think they must be resisted on the basis that we democratically elected to leave.
	I think it's also interesting that despite Brexit being the number one issue of this election, it wasn't necessarily what people were voting for.
	I can't say I agree with that.
	I personally voted exclusively for Brexit on the understanding that I probably wouldn't enjoy anything else the Conservatives did.
	But that's not how it was for most people.
	So there's an article on The Independent that says, 9 out of 10 voters reject Theresa May's claim that the election is about Brexit and say it's about public services.
	According to ORB, 90% of people agree that the election should not just be about Brexit, but also about public services, Labour's preferred ground, while only 10% disagree.
	Some 89% of people who voted for Tory in 2015 and 88% of those who backed Leave in last year's referendum agree that it should not just be about a Brexit election.
	And I mean on the surface I can agree.
	It shouldn't just be about that.
	But this is going to be such a colossal change for Britain.
	And it does have the potential to severely impact our economy.
	We have to phrase everything in terms of what may or may not happen during Brexit.
	For example, if we lose 5.5% of our GDP because we are unable to get the deal we want from the EU, then that is going to affect the social services that we have in this country.
	But I can understand why people didn't want to base their decision on that alone, especially when both of the major parties agreed that Brexit was going ahead and they wouldn't try to stop it.
	However, when asked to name the single most important issue in their mind when deciding how to vote, more people, 24%, opted for Brexit more than any other of the six options offered.
	The economy, including living standards, was not far behind on 22%, followed by the NHS on 19%, the best candidate to be prime minister on 15%, security including defence and terrorism 8%, social care including pensioners 4% and education on 2%.
	Brexit was the leading issue, but it wasn't the only important issue.
	But like I said, I really think it's going to affect all of the other issues.
	I'd like to give a quick apology to my American audience.
	I'm aware that I've been focusing on domestic politics a lot, and I'm aware that that's not necessarily relevant to your interests.
	But I'd just like to thank you all as well, because I noticed in the comments that so many Americans are so behind Brexit, on points of principle.
	It really is rather heartwarming, and I suppose I'd better deal with an American story, just to say thanks.
	So recently there was a Columbine-style massacre in a supermarket, where the shooter posted chilling videos online.
	As reported by the Washington Post, Randy Stare's shift at a grocery store in Pennsylvania began at 11pm just as the store was closing.
	Soon after he began blocking the store's doors with pallets and other items.
	Just before 1am Thursday, with a pair of pistol grip shotguns, he fired 59 shots, killing three of his fellow employees.
	He explained how he would execute the shooting and whom he would kill.
	He kissed the barrels of his two shotguns and talked about his desire to take his own life.
	I'm going to feel more powerful than I ever have in my life.
	There is not going to be anyone that's going to be able to stop me.
	Stair then took his own life, dying of an apparent gunshot wound to the head.
	I think it's very interesting what the Washington Post report didn't include though.
	Randy Stair had a YouTube channel and here's a clip from his last video.
	I've had to remove the volume on the clip because it's got copyrighted music on it and I don't want to get a strike.
	So you'll have to watch it in silence I'm afraid.
	But as you can see, it's an slightly unfinished animation of a bunch of female musicians and a male friend of theirs going on what appears to be a school shooting rampage.
	As you can see the young man who's doing the shooting seems angry, but the young woman who's doing the shooting seems to be enjoying herself.
	He even states in the video's description that this will be his last video ever.
	And he intersperses the video with clips of himself shooting a shotgun, presumably practicing for this.
	As you can see, he's quite a slender young chap, and you probably won't be too surprised to learn that I have just misgendered him.
	Writing for Heat Street, Ian Miles Chung fills in the gaps that the Washington Post left.
	Pennsylvania supermarket shooter self-identified as transgender woman who hated all men.
	Randy Stare left behind a trove of material explaining his motivations for gunning down three of his co-workers.
	In his recorded suicide notes released just hours before the rampage, the 24-year-old talked extensively about his depression, about who he was as a person, a transgender woman who hated men, and toxic masculinity.
	He says, I've always been a girl and I wish I could have told you from day one.
	I didn't realise until I discovered Ember, a character from the cartoon series.
	She is what brought that out in me.
	I didn't just wake up one day and be like, oh, I'm a girl great.
	Ember is what brought that out in me.
	I wanted to look like her.
	I wanted to dress like her.
	I wanted to be like her.
	That was in like 10th grade.
	She was my first crush and ultimately she was my final demise.
	Stare thanked several girls who contributed artwork and character designs to his project.
	He says that the girls were the only people he could talk to about his personal life, the only people who really understood him.
	They were all girls.
	They weren't guys.
	They were mostly all girls, so I would talk to them.
	The only people I would talk to on social media in the last year were girls.
	And eventually I started to realise I was sexist, I was racist, I was prejudiced, and I was discriminate.
	That is one hell of a fucking lethal combination.
	He says, I've always hated black people.
	I fucking hate people who aren't white, Caucasian, whatever.
	I hate the human race.
	And I just started hating guys more than anything.
	I hate guys.
	I think they're fucking disgusting.
	The facial hair they have, the body hair, the muscle build, and all that fucking body structure shit.
	I hate.
	Everything about guys, I hate.
	And the fact that I was forced to live as one, you know, that hurt a lot.
	And also, I hated my name too.
	My life was a living hell.
	It's when I started somewhat talking about my name.
	It's just, I hated guys.
	I was never attracted to guys, which led me to realising that I wasn't gay.
	Which I still had thoughts about to this day, because I never had girlfriends or anything like that.
	But I guess when it came down to it, I felt like I was transgender or something.
	Like a woman the whole time.
	Spiritually, I was a woman.
	I'm a female soul, but I had to live in a man's body.
	And to do what I set out to do, it was my sole contract.
	It was what I was meant to do.
	And I was just so happy to know that I wasn't gay.
	You're only gay if you're attracted to guys, which I wasn't.
	So that made me very happy because I fucking hate gay people.
	Except an exception would be Freddie Mercury from Queen, the only exception.
	This is a screenshot from the beginning of the video, where he begins by saying, I've been stepped on my whole life, not anymore.
	I've had enough of this putrid planet and I'm going to leave my mark.
	And I just want to be really clear about my opinion of this chap.
	Randy Stair did not commit a massacre because of social justice or identity politics.
	Randy Stair committed a massacre because he had personal and emotional issues that he was unable to resolve.
	If he had lived in another time and place, say a thousand years ago, he would have been ranting and raving about God and the devil before picking up a sword and killing people.
	From what I have seen, Randy Stair did not appear to be a terrorist.
	I don't think there was a political motive for what he did.
	And so I don't think we should try and paint any kind of political movement with the blood that he spilled.
	In exactly the same way that the Portland Stabbers shouldn't be a reflection of Bernie Bros, that Elliot Rogers shouldn't be a reflection of pickup artists or anything of the sort.
	But since we're on the subject, let's talk about Sadiq Khan's bizarre attitude towards terrorism.
	You are mayor of the capital city where the most recent terrorist attack has taken place.
	How many of those 400 have come back to London?
	The estimate is just over half.
	So when you look at the- Where are they?
	When you look at well, when you look at the letting people back in to the UK who've just been trained, they've actually fought potentially against our troops.
	How are we letting them back in without knowing exactly where they are and what they're up to?
	Because out of all the thousands of people that we're concerned about, surely those who've actually gone to fight are the biggest risk.
	That's one of the reasons why it doesn't make sense for the government to be cutting resources from those.
	Where are they?
	You're the mayor of this capitalist.
	I can't follow 400 people.
	What I can do is make sure policies, because what we can do, though, is make sure we've got the resources for the police and the experts.
	Why can't you instruct the police?
	Why can't you call Cressida Dick right now and say every one of those people who's come back from a war zone who's in London?
	I want them followed.
	Let me see why.
	Because the Met Police budget, roughly speaking, 15% to 20% is funded by me, the mayor.
	The rest comes from central government.
	If the Met Police budget is being shrunk and reduced, they've got to prioritise and use their resources in a sensible savings.
	What could be a bigger priority than people coming back from a Syrian battlefield?
	Well, that's a bloody good question.
	I can't believe I'm on the same side as Piers Morgan.
	But let's have a look at what Sadiq Khan has been using his resources for.
	A lot of people have noticed that London's Metropolitan Police seem awfully concerned about hate crimes.
	And this is something that they apparently have quite a lot of budget for.
	Not following terrorists, that's less important than people saying nasty things on the internet.
	Someone had their feelings hurt because of hostility or prejudice.
	That's way more important than people being killed, Piers.
	Come on, get your priorities straight.
	Fact, this is such a priority that back in April, Sadiq Khan launched the London's online hate crime hub, which sounds very important.
	A police unit to help tackle online hate crime and provide better support for victims in London has been launched by the capital's mayor.
	The online hate crime hub is made up of five specially trained meta officers who will try and identify, prevent, and investigate abuse online.
	Sadiq Khan and his officers said they would work with community experts to develop the police's understanding of online hate.
	Oh, that's really fucking important.
	Someone shared something on Facebook or Twitter, and my god, the police need to get involved.
	It's the first hub of its kind in the UK and will cost 1.7 million pounds to police people on social fucking media.
	It's being funded by the Meta in the Mayor's office.
	Well, I mean, don't worry about tracking those terrorists, Sadiq.
	Don't worry about it.
	I can see where your money's going.
	Any online hate crimes reported to police in the capital, including abuse posted on Twitter and Facebook, will be looked into by the unit.
	Thank God the taxpayer money going to good use.
	Officers will provide referrals to victim support groups and work with police in relevant boroughs to investigate victims of tweets.
	City Hall said discussions were also underway with social media companies to develop appropriate online sanctions for perpetrators of online hate.
	Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, online sanctions.
	He said something hateful online, quick.
	We need to spend taxpayer money to keep him off the internet.
	Hey, you know, there are 200 terrorists of 400 that have returned from Syria and they're wandering around in London and they are jihadis and they're going to try and commit terror attacks.
	What should we do, Sadiq?
	Well, we haven't got the money to chase them around, but it's a lot easier to do it via Twitter, isn't it?
	It's a lot easier.
	Victoria Wright, a disability and disfigurement rights campaigner in London, what the fuck is disability and disfigurement rights?
	They don't have different rights to the rest of us just because they're disabled or disfigured.
	But anyway, okay, carry on.
	This campaigner in London who said that she's been subjected to online abuse called the hub a much needed initiative that will make a real difference.
	Are there actually victims of terror attacks in London at the moment who might actually need help that Sadiq Khan is actually not diverting resources to and is more concerned about instead policing the fucking internet?
	Because that's what this really fucking looks like.
	And it's really hard to think of something more vile than London's police chief saying the attack victims show the city's diversity.
	The Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police says the nationalities of the eight victims in the terrorist attack on London Bridge tell a proud story of London's unique makeup.
	Why are you pushing your ideological agenda?
	It's desperately sad and poignant, but among those who died is someone who's British.
	They're a French, Australian, Canadian, Spanish.
	Chrisida Dick told the Associated Press in an interview on Saturday, In terms of our witnesses we've spoken to so far, out of the 300 odd people, there are 20 different countries of origin.
	And the London British population comes from all kinds of backgrounds of every faith and ethnicity.
	What the fuck is wrong with you people?
	What is fucking wrong with your heads?
	Why is the cult of diversity so fucking important?
	You have to grandstand about it on the corpses of the victims.
	This is not a relevant point.
	But you know what?
	There are only 200 terrorists who are going to do the same thing and then it will be another great opportunity to say, look, look at how many different colours of people were murdered by our terrorists.
	Aren't we so fucking diverse?
	We believe, of course, that's what makes our city so great.
	It's a place where the vast majority of the time, it's incredibly integrated, and that diversity gives us strength!
	Give me fucking strength, I swear to God.
	It's a goddamn cult.
	They have been absolutely indoctrinated into this.
	And as soon as something happens, they're like, yeah, well, I mean, look how diverse the victims were.
	That diversity gives us strength.
	Get fucked.
	You know, I probably should have started with that or something because I wanted to end this week with something that's actually really positive, at least for me, and I wanted to showcase because it's nice to have someone who is not simply a rabid hater of mine to do something that approaches some kind of objective analysis.
	After the whole live stream to Barker with Thunderfoot, there was a French academic called Jean-François, who I'm just going to call JF because I can't pronounce the rest of his name.
	And he did a video breakdown of it that I shared.
	And I didn't realise that his video breakdown of it was part of a wider, I guess you would call it kind of a study on me that he has now published.
	Report on the methods used by Sargon of Akkad in his internet publications.
	Someone sent this to me and I was just like, oh god, this is going to be damning, isn't it?
	I mean, don't be wrong, I work as hard as I can, but for some reason this is just giving me flashbacks of being at school where I didn't work as hard as I can.
	It's quite long, so I'm just going to give you the beginning and I'll leave a link to it and his channel in the description if you'd like to check him out to find out more.
	He says, After weeks of debating and exchanging with broad segments of the internet community, I publish a full report on the question of whether or not Sargon of Akkad is using proper methodologies in his internet publications.
	I've listened to every single person who claimed that they could prove Sargon has a poor methodology, respectable or not.
	Every single troll had their chance at presenting a case.
	I've listened as carefully as was humanely possible.
	The findings are presented in a summarised form at the bottom of the report.
	The following six claims have been distilled from thousands of interactions with members of the anti-Sargon audience over a period of many weeks, and they are believed to include all factual claims about Sargon's methodology being flawed at this moment.
	If you think that this post is missing an important claim, you can post it in the comments, etc. etc.
	It's pretty long, so I'm just going to skip straight to the conclusion.
	I have now interacted with hundreds of Sargon haters for the last few weeks of my life.
	I have asked each and every one of them to present factual claims about any methodological issues they have about Sargon.
	I've suggested to them that maybe they just disagree politically with him on some subjects, and that they could simply state it as such.
	Many of them denied this.
	Sargon doesn't read his sources.
	No, he's just incompetent.
	He's a fraud.
	He deceives people.
	I have collected all objections about his methods and errors, which boil down to the list of six cases we have covered here.
	And you can refer to the other cases in the comment section if you have more.
	I conclude that three of these cases were unsupported.
	I conclude that in more than five years of public life, counting more than 50,000 tweets, Christ, I use Twitter too much, participation to more than 1,500 videos that have generated more than 300 million views, in addition to more than 300 live streams, Sargon has committed a total of three minor errors.
	In one case, he misused quotes in a tweet.
	In the second case, he failed at providing the contextual definition of the legal concepts, clearly delineating the meaning of the words he was using.
	In the third case, he misspoke and used the word probably when the best description would have been possibly.
	I conclude that every day, billions of people listen to other people whom they consider authorities and who have demonstrated a much higher rate of error than he does.
	The retraction rate of Sargon per volume of statements does not seem to be different from that of major news media and scientific articles published in peer-reviewed publications.
	This is quite impressive considering he is under much tighter security considering that he is under much tighter scrutiny than the average peer-reviewed scientific journal.
	Millions of eyes have crossed his content, while many scientific papers went unread by anyone on the shelves of our libraries.
	Perhaps even more impressive is that Sargon has been systematically acknowledging the existence of these errors and recognizing his errors on the public space.
	Too long didn't read.
	Sargon is a decent human being.
	There is no evidence of intellectual or academic misconduct on his part.
	Jean-François Garry Pay, PhD.
	Um, thanks, JF.
	I appreciate you taking the time to do this.
	He didn't have to do this.
	This is a thing that he decided to do on his own that he hasn't been paid for, and he's just done it because he felt he thought it necessary to do, which I'm genuinely thankful for, because every day all I get are these ridiculous accusations.
	They're completely one-sided, and I feel that they're completely unfounded.
	And it's nice to see that a scientist, and he's a PhD in biology, I believe, and it actually is quite gratifying that a STEM scientist will actually take the time to say, look, this guy isn't what you say he is, and so I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time going forward worrying about what Richard Dawkins would call the gnats.
	And I might just mute them or something, just because it bothers me that I genuinely go out of my way to work as hard as I can and be as intellectually honest as I possibly can be.
	And all I get from these partisans is misrepresentation.
	It just doesn't feel fair, you know?
	And I really don't like it.
	But anyway, again, thank you very much, JF.
	And like I said, there's a link to his channel.
	I've actually started watching some of his stuff since all of this has been going on.
	And he's an entertaining guy.
	And I think he does a good job of fairly representing the things he is talking about.
	So yeah, like I said, I'll leave a link to his channel.
	And I think you should definitely check him out.
	And again, just thanks.
	I get so many people trying to delegitimize me.

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