Sargon of Akkad and Media Criticism

[@Hakasedess]

Sargon is also, in this video, doing that thing where he takes the status quo as natural and unaffected, and then uses that assumption itself to claim media has no effect on the status quo. There is no way to claim, conclusively, that media doesn't affect things like murder rates, rape rates, etc. and the reason is simple: There is no control group. Yet, he claims this, because it is his assumption, and the rest of his 'argument' flows from that base assumption.

[@SarahZ]

I’m gonna watch this but first things first: that thumbnail is so fucking good

[@IconforShort]

Sarah Z for some reason I didn’t reply to this, but thanks! i hope you liked it at least a little.

[@hideokojima2015]

I literally got here from one of your videos that led me down a rabbit hole!

[@mothcub]

that closing line owns

[@ShirDeutch]

I love the fact that LeubenSchleuben has become a serious talking point.

[@jimbogreen7029]

lmao

[@Flamefire124]

Love your opening joke about Big Joel's name. Good response.

[@seermayton-el3488]

So Sargon of Akkad is really the ancient Akkadian ruler from the 24th to 23 century? Lol

[@JHFreedman]

Needs editing but has a good script. Even title cards for each part would help.

[@ZenHuxtable]

Agree. Shaun's a good reference point

[@hat-eating-cthulu-goat3221]

Loved the way you formulated your points, as a non-native speaker I appreciate the way you talk and phrase your points. Also this might be weird, but you have a really nice voice. I´d love getting to see more stuff from you in the future.

[@IconforShort]

it probably is weird, but embracing weird is what we're all about here :)

[@remyremington2505]

"Man who lies about both his name and size, Big Joel" *subscribes*

[@francocarrizosparosvich4638]

Sargon usually mades up arguments that work against himself. "Anita only does this because she is a feminist. There is no point on discussing about our personal views..." "Hey, but aren't you doing videos sharing your opinion about stuff too? Stuff that you disagree? Isn't that, like...and obvious statement, that could be used to shut down every conversation, deleting any actual possible human dialogue?" "Honestly I don't care about Anita lol"

[@solidwarrior]

I disagree with Anita on many things, but man Sargon's counter arguments are just silly.

[@IconforShort]

how dare you disagree with anita >:(

[@solidwarrior]

@@IconforShort Don't get me wrong, I agree with Big Joel that many Sargon and Thundefoot's arguments against Anita are stupid and lacking in nuance, but there are people with genuine interest in art criticism and cultivation theory who had disagreed with Anita on multiple levels, including yours truly. I think there is a place where we can discuss these issues in a healthy manner without resorting to insults and idiotic claims like what Sargon and Thunderfoot do. Sadly, the internet makes it for easier for people to form angry mobs than having a genuine discussion. I myself try to promote a healthy discourse without resorting to toxicity.

[@guishenaskishe1908]

This appeared randomly on my recommendations. Good job.

[@IconforShort]

Guishe Naskishe thank you! i appreciate ya :) have a good day

[@SpoopySquid]

If this is your first video, I can't wait to see what else you've got

[@IconforShort]

SpoopySquid you should only have to wait about a week or so, i’m working on another one right now

[@jottXD]

Just saw this on twitter and ....Damn that’s a good video! Your points are focused and relevant, your sound quality is good and that verdict is just perfect :D You definitely have a new subscriber!

[@albertfaust5839]

Well made for a first video. I can't wait for Sargons response of: "That's not what I said!" And the classic focus on something irrelevant to the point, like that he claimed that Sargon supports a kinda sexist attitude.

[@tigerstripedsinger]

I enjoyed this video, thought it was really well reasoned, you have a good voice for this sort of thing. I would just suggest you paint more of a picture with editing to make it easier to follow :) keep it up!

[@michaelflaherty9354]

"young men saving young women, that's real life man" That's blows my fuckin mind. I wish he would have said what he was thinking which would have been "First of all Double Dragon really happened and the point of art is to show you things that really happened"

[@AndersOHMoberg]

Good video, the argument is very plainly laid out! I'm a subscriber now!

[@ParanoidFactoid]

Congratulations on a successful first video!

[@oo4667]

i just wanted to say that the thumbnail is top tier

[@christinag2420]

Idk how I feel about this Big Joel fella. Medium Henry is much preferable I think.

[@IconforShort]

the people have a right to know

[@Crawver]

Oh wow, this was good. Have I found a new lefty tuber on the ground floor? Well presented, clear and concise. I liked it. Could use the audio being a little louder though, but that's a mild thing.

[@jackkendall6420]

Very good video for a debut, subscribed.

[@josephc.3192]

Hey Icon! Looking forward to future uploads.

[@AConnorDN38416]

Carl's rebuttal amounts to restating the points made in the original videos that are being critiqued verbatim, but maybe with a little more annoyance in his voice this time

[@Dorian_sapiens]

That's how you know you're operating in peak facts-not-feelings territory, when most of the weight of your argument is conveyed by your tone of voice.

[@archivalzone]

this is a good video. Now hotly awaiting thunderf00t's response to your response to carl's response to big joel's video. Then the sinularity will come and we will all ascend :-)

[@CODMarioWarfare]

You can probably get Thunderf00t's response by watching an hour's worth of tangentially related content since it will undoubtedly be 90% recycled dialogue and footage.

[@pashlyn]

Thank you for making this because holy shit I don't think I can sit through a Sargon video

[@IconforShort]

I can't either, tbh

[@edoardohutha694]

Good take on the discussion , you’ve earned a subscriber .

[@Dorian_sapiens]

Nice work! Please keep going! :)

[@BrineWalsh]

Great video! I appreciate how concise and to the point you are. And yes, I think you really get to the core of Carl's bizarre, internally inconsistent "philosophy". I mean, I would go a step further and make the claim that I genuinely don't think Carl actually believes in much of anything so long as he appears smart and right all of the time (which is never, but shhhhHH). It's why Carl spends so, so, SO much time (a borderline pathological amount of time) just "responding" to the works and ideas of other people. People he specifically Does Not Like... a LOT. It's... like... it's so *easy* to just produce a video that "responds" to someone else, incessantly remarking "lol", "I didn't say that", "wrong", etc. He must know that this is easy, too. And that his fan base will eat this shit up.

[@differentperson5060]

Video Games are real. They're all real. The people need to know.

[@IconforShort]

DifferentPerson how do you rt a youtube comment

[@johnlaske7961]

Great video, subscribed!

[@noomi627]

Good job

[@somedipshtinthecomments2507]

Is he STILL talking about this shit?

[@IconforShort]

Ian Priest only because of Joel’s video, at least as far as I know

[@somedipshtinthecomments2507]

@@IconforShort "Who the fuck is screaming 'STOP BEING A PEDANTIC FUCKWIT' at my house. Show yourself, coward. i will never stop"

[@shipwreckedSoul]

I’ve watched both videos and honestly, both of them made fools of themselves. Sargon for dismissing the idea that art can be criticised outside of empirical methodology and Joel for pretending that Anita wasn’t just pushing for a particular moral system to be inserted into consumer entertainment. Both as children of liberalism cannot speak honestly about power; this is a struggle between two moral systems for domination of the moral sphere, the right to say what is right and what is wrong and both want to pretend this is just obviously wrong/right. A far more interesting and necessary discussion would be about the value of both moral systems. Progressivism almost never discusses how it determines what is right or wrong, where concepts of good and evil come from, what is a virtuous life etc; while someone like Sargon just defends “common sense” as determining morality which is childish.

[@IconforShort]

honestly, I don't think that conversation would go anywhere. the only people who are really equipped for that are like, philosophers, and unfortunately, most people are not philosophers. I don't think I'd be able to adequately explain my own personal beliefs, much less debate their merits with someone, so I don't think trying to open that avenue of discourse would be particularly beneficial. and really quick, I don't agree with your assertion that Joel was "pretending that Anita wasn't just pushing for a particular moral system to be inserted into consumer entertainment". for one, he explicitly acknowledges this in his video. "[sexist tropes in games are] a problem" was one of the two main points he brought up in his video, and that's about as blatant of a normative statement as you can make. like, he doesn't talk about it as a moral discussion, both because it's not relevant to the subject of his video, and also because it's not relevant to the arguments being made, but it seems reasonable to assume his audience can figure that out themselves.

[@shipwreckedSoul]

@@IconforShort Hmmm, I don’t know, maybe I’m jumping ahead but it seems to me if you’re going to say Sargon and the gang won’t entertain criticism of art from a moral perspective Joel should at least be able to properly explain the moral system in question if he's going to defend it from critics. I mean if Joel was, as he seemed to me, to be pushing Anita’s “video games are sexist” narrative, he seemed to do it without realising or admitting that it is a moral statement, based on an ideology that can’t be proven empirically (which Sargon weirdly attacks him for). As no moral system ever can. If Joel or Sargon wants to get to the bottom of this mystery they need to go beyond saying their moral system is right “just cause”, and actually get philosophical and ask why and how a thing can be good or bad. Maybe not the point of the video, you’re right, but as with so many exchanges on the internet, two gladiators geared up for a mighty battle, and hurling their spears, only managed to injure the audience...

[@IconforShort]

@@shipwreckedSoul I find this to be a strange expectation. debate would be virtually impossible for anyone without an extensive education in philosophy, debate, and rhetoric, and that means that you've essentially cut off the public from discussion of virtually any topic. this also comes across as rather strange to me because you don't seem to realize that basically every single argument rests on an underlying value system. if I was to apply your argument to any discussion I saw fit, I could challenge someone asserting that fried food is bad for you on the basis that they haven't explained the moral framework underlying their concepts of bad and good. why should fried food be considered "bad"? why are you asserting its badness without explaining the values underlying that assumption? moral philosophy is interesting and all, but this seems, to me at least, to be a fruitless venture. it reminds me quite a lot of people who dig into epistemology whenever someone asserts something as true. epistemology is interesting, sure, and examining your assumptions is a good thing, but doing that every time you have a conversation is not only frustrating and time-wasting, it halts conversation about the topic at hand. this seems to be a similar exercise, where debating the moral systems behind their arguments kind of distracts from the discussion at hand. I can appreciate it if you enjoy discussing these things, I do believe they're very important and should be discussed, but they also seem unnecessarily exclusionary, and like they're missing the forest for the trees, so to speak.

[@shipwreckedSoul]

@@IconforShort Fair enough. I do realise that all arguments rest on moral systems, I just wanted to see a discussion of those moral systems instead of art criticism. It's so rare to see the Sargon-ites and the Progressives actually talking to each other that I was hoping for something more interesting.

[@Tacom4ster]

If Sargon and now Act Man just said they don't respect games as art (most art is political) I would be more fine with their bitching

[@IconforShort]

Adrian Dezendegui but then they’d have to argue that movies, comic books, street art, performance art, even more traditional art also isn’t art, since lots of art contains messages that they don’t endorse and want to dismiss criticism of. Sargon dismisses harmful messages in media by dismissing the idea of personal interpretation, which allows him to still say they’re art, just that any criticism he doesn’t like has no merit

[@Tacom4ster]

@@IconforShort I could also argue to him how removing games status as art would may make things worse, like when Nintendo throwing Sega under the bus during the 90s at congress. Games only became art legally at America by the Obama administration. Bad games could be merely seen as a terrible made product like spoiled milk that should be regulated to protect people.

[@jimbogreen7029]

What did act man say

[@trip9845]

@@Tacom4ster when did they say any thing like that?

[@BandEater]

Subscrobed

[@potatoprist3210]

I do disagree whit joul on sme pointa 1- he ignores the biggest form of natzie form of media wich is still produced till today my camp even thow it can be conciderd an auto biography i still think it wold have been a batter example 2 he ignores the ideas of sociology and psychology to be a form of sciences in the anita video