Carl Benjamin / Sargon of Akkad / Akkad Daily / The Thinkery / @not_sargon / @WarPlanPurple - Leader of the "Liberalists" & Droning Pseudo-Intellectual Boomer anti-SJW Activist, Applebees Waiter, Mass Shooter Whiteknight

[p1138]

This video is actually hilarious it's Carl just walking around Swindon calling the town a dump

He's bitching about a bus stop...
"you'd never believe that was a restaurant if I didn't tell you" I don't know, the signage all along the bottom with menu items, taking phone orders and shit, would seem to indicate that it's a restaurant. "what kind of restaurant has blacked out windows" there's restaurants with no windows. Some damn nice ones too.
Things were better when it was all bars and nightclubs? wtf? Not having a bunch of shitty clubs and bars is a post apocalyptic city? They wouldn't be open in the morning or during the day anyway. Why is he so fixated on a lack of nightclubs when he's 45?
Then he walks down a street that's fairly clean with an open business at damn near every storefront except for the butcher? Oh no, there's fewer bars!
There's even a fairly large open market going on in the middle of the day on a fucking Thursday with customers everywhere, what is the problem with this?
Bitching about defibrillators? Lots of nice places have AEDs around with signage, especially shit like malls.
"This is where all of the shops were" as he walks past a Lush, after 30 other shops. And then there's some closed storefronts... this is basically an outdoor shopping mall, what mall doesn't have that?
Then he claims how busy the place is 5 minutes after talking about it being a barren post apocalypse.
The indoor part of the mall looks like any other indoor mall in a suburb.

Then he interviews some guy running a shitty generic nerd culture store that sells some magic cards and funko pops claiming he's some example of being a successful entrepreneur?

Then back out and about bothering some construction people. Bitches about some murals.
Back down another street that looks fairly clean with open shops everywhere, with customers.
Bitching about some abandoned buildings
Walking through a nice looking maintained park with old people walking around. Claims it used to be quiet and nice, the only noise there is some people having a conversation as he's walking past.

This man has no idea wtf a real run down ghetto would actually look like. And I think unironically doesn't understand that places with nothing but bars and clubs for blocks are generally shitholes attracting problems during their business hours and leave the place looking like a dump during the day, unless it's something like Las Vegas that actually operates 24/7 and has the money to keep parts of it cleaned up.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

Excuse me, but the only vibe I'm getting is that Sargon never had to walk through London ghettos in his entire life. If this area is a ruins of an old "post-apocalyptic civilization" than I'm fucking Cinderella, cause that's the whitest looking "hood" I've ever seen, containing a park with mowed grass, streets with hardly any litter and there's no sign of broken needles or gunshots in walls anywhere. By American standards (a country he was glazing just a few videos ago) this is paradise for an urban area.

London ghettos you never lived until you've walked through the bad parts of Philadelphia at night we have the legendary worst neighborhood in AmericaKensington.
To be fair I still think SW Philly is much worse than Kensington but the last time I was there was like 4 years ago

 

[Skylavijas]

"you'd never believe that was a restaurant if I didn't tell you" I don't know, the signage all along the bottom with menu items, taking phone orders and shit, would seem to indicate that it's a restaurant. "what kind of restaurant has blacked out windows" there's restaurants with no windows. Some damn nice ones too.

From my experience, these cheap, local run restaurants are fantastic for tasty takeaway when you're a student strapped for cash and money. They're cheaper, more filling and tastier than the fast food joints like Mcdonalds or KFC.

Sargon is just a horribly out of touch suburbanite.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

This video is actually hilarious it's Carl just walking around Swindon calling the town a dump

This is slop for foreigners, the death of the town centre is very common in the UK and what he shows off isn't a particularly bad example of that kind of urban decay. The story of Callum finding someone had taken a shit in the hallway of his block of flats tells me more about the quality of Swindon than 37 minutes of Sargon bitching.

The British appreciation for chain pubs will never stop being mind blowing to me. Makes them all sound like the kind of dent who would somehow have a good time regularing Applebee's instead of supporting a local business.

People like chain pubs because they usually have a consistent quality to them and are fairly cheap.

 

[p1138]

People like chain pubs because they usually have a consistent quality to them and are fairly cheap.

That's an understandable position, but you don't need one on literally every block, let alone multiple on every fucking street next door to and across from eachother. That's not a town center, that's just a shitty off-season spring break neighborhood near the beach instead of on it, full of bars and hostels.

This is slop for foreigners, the death of the town centre is very common in the UK and what he shows off isn't a particularly bad example of that kind of urban decay. The story of Callum finding someone had taken a shit in the hallway of his block of flats tells me more about the quality of Swindon than 37 minutes of Sargon bitching.

Is it slop for foreigners? I would think most foreigners have been past or are at least aware of areas far more ghetto than this. It seems more like slop for upper class suburban yuppies.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

Is it slop for foreigners

Yeah because urban decay doesn't tend to get known about outside of the country apart from notable examples, like people might know about Detroit but do they know about it in Appalachia? The UK doesn't have an example of urban decay with the same international notoriety as Detroit so the fact that its happening here too is fairly unknown.

 

[p1138]

Yeah because urban decay doesn't tend to get known about outside of the country apart from notable examples, like people might know about Detroit but do they know about it in Appalachia? The UK doesn't have an example of urban decay with the same international notoriety as Detroit so the fact that its happening here too is fairly unknown.

Sure, but when Sargon of Applebees can only reminisce about how everything used to just be bars and clubs, the current state he shows in the video seems like it's been an improvement.

 

[Big Judge Cock]

It's funny that you lot can't see that empty buildings are worse than nightclubs because you want to hate Sargon. He has his flaws, but there's not much to argue here.

 

[p1138]

It's funny that you lot can't see that empty buildings are worse than nightclubs because you want to hate Sargon. He has his flaws, but there's not much to argue here.

No, an empty building is not worse than a night club. No one said that.
Having a bunch of night clubs and bars is worse than a few empty buildings or simply having become other businesses(because he bitches about that as well). Having your town center be nothing but bars and night clubs is

1. Going to attract shitty clientele
2. Not provide any business during the day so they may as well be closed anyway if you've got no interest in stumbling between bars and clubs at night
3. Fucking retarded no matter who says it, the fact that Sargon said it doesn't change how stupid it is.

 

[Vassal]

This man has no idea wtf a real run down ghetto would actually look like.

The guy walks around a working class area in a fucking suit bitching about the state of things, his idea of what a ghetto is probably comes some ancient British manuscript on how best to deal with the plebs.

 

[Muad'Dick]

Someone should dump Sir Carl of Swindon into the centre of Harlesden on market day with one of those "I Hate Niggers" sandwich boards from Die Hard 3. That will show him the real urban experience.

 

[Skylavijas]

It's funny that you lot can't see that empty buildings are worse than nightclubs because you want to hate Sargon. He has his flaws, but there's not much to argue here.

Urban decay is indeed a topic worth discussing, particularly urban decay of small towns, but Sargon absolutely doesn't do the topic justice. The way he describes the area he visits as "apocalyptic" is an insult to every british man and woman that had to experience REAL ghettoficiation or their childhood neighborhoods turning into ghost towns. Much worse than "uhhh, me pubs shat deown", I mean losing reliable close access to vital services like medical care, due to the only family pharmacy in town shutting down, or the police taking forever to arrive to investigate murder scenes, or needing to spend hours to drive your kids to a proper school, because educational institutions around you are either of shit quality or straight up not present at all.

Despite the video being half an hour long, he doesn't explain any fucking history or policy that led to the town becoming what it is, besides "THEY DID THIS TO YOU". Who the fuck is they? What did the do? Evidently... it's up to your interpretation. So you're not learning anything new whatsoever, you're just receiving validation for beating down a strawman in your head of whatever group you dislike the most. Instead of encouraging people to partake in proper political activism, to advocate for specific reform or policy that would improve the conditions of areas subject to urban decay, people are encouraged to be boxing ghosts and believe that voting in a specific political party is gonna magically solve all problems, an attitude which makes the urban decay problem even worse. Voting once every 4 years is not political activism, it's fulfilling a bare minimum requirement of being a member of a civil society.

 

[Nonga Tork]

London ghettos you never lived until you've walked through the bad parts of Philadelphia at night we have the legendary worst neighborhood in AmericaKensington.
To be fair I still think SW Philly is much worse than Kensington but the last time I was there was like 4 years ago

I'll never forget driving to the Philadelphia Zoo for the first time (which is actually a really nice zoo) and my GPS sending me through a neighborhood that looked like it had just been bombed.

 

[Max2019]

Someone should dump Sir Carl of Swindon into the centre of Harlesden on market day with one of those "I Hate Niggers" sandwich boards from Die Hard 3. That will show him the real urban experience.

A sign saying "You're all a bunch of niggers"

 

[Naughty vir]

I disagree with Carl's assessment of Ethan Klein being the "adult in the room" in contrast to Ian Jomha. Ethan Klein may be many things, but a mature adult is not one of them.

 

[mofu mofo]

Americans going to other countries and being shocked that they have a different culture, a tale as old as time. Very English Tourist.

It's not just Britain, practically all of Northern Europe, regardless of political affiliation, has that same attitude of aversion to strangers, that's taken to be as rudeness by American tourists (like cashiers not smiling, but having a blank expression).

The one thing we hate more than loud Americans is PanAm smiles. You will find some friendly cashiers, they're mostly older women.

Where I currently live, whenever I travel by train or bus, there seems to be an unwritten rule that you should never sit next to somebody you don't know, unless there is nothing left but neighboring seats. So it's not uncommon to see throughout the whole train all the areas with 4 seats, looking at one table to be occupied by just 1 person.

We're a bit like citydwellers so Urinal Protocol applies in all UK public spaces:

If you sit next to a stranger when there's other options then people will tend to think that you have personal boundary issues i.e. that you're a robber, sex offender, mong or looney. Extenuating circumstances are accepted, like if you can't walk properly people won't think it's weird that take the first seat you come to but they'll probably still be slightly uncomfortable.

And then my Hotels subcontracted parking enforcers charged that same credit card another 150 dollars because I was parked in the loading zone longer then 15 minutes.

Privatised parking enforcement has been shitty in the UK since its invention. We used to have rogue clamping companies who pissed off so many people that we pretty much banned privatised car clamping. We also had to regulate the signage cos they'd print the parking notice in like 4pt text and put the sign 15' off the ground.

Carl also commented that he was shocked at the abundance put in front of him when he ordered food at a restaurant. In America, you are not expected to eat everything. You are expected to eat what you want, and put the rest in a box to take home for later.

That massively caught us out when me and the family went to Pennsylvania in the 90s. Also, the huge range of bread options was baffling but the experience did prepare my for my first Subway order some years later.

Despite the video being half an hour long, he doesn't explain any fucking history or policy that led to the town becoming what it is, besides "THEY DID THIS TO YOU". Who the fuck is they? What did the do? Evidently... it's up to your interpretation. So you're not learning anything new whatsoever, you're just receiving validation for beating down a strawman in your head of whatever group you dislike the most. Instead of encouraging people to partake in proper political activism, to advocate for specific reform or policy that would improve the conditions of areas subject to urban decay, people are encouraged to be boxing ghosts and believe that voting in a specific political party is gonna magically solve all problems, an attitude which makes the urban decay problem even worse. Voting once every 4 years is not political activism, it's fulfilling a bare minimum requirement of being a member of a civil society.

I'm certain that most of Carlgon's audience is in the US (his channel analytics will tell him this) so they'll be turned off if he goes hyperlocal on politics without somehow turning it into educational content. He'd probably have to read a lot of council paperwork as well.


Swindon looks like the middling parts of Leeds and it's better than anywhere in Bradford that's not been redeveloped this century. I live in a more upmarket town and there's still empty shops all over the place due to internet shopping. The Mechanic's Institute hasn't existed for like a century and the building in Swindon likely has the twin curses of being both condemned and listed. That means there's enormous legal hurdles to knocking it down or altering it and any restoration has to be done in a way that preserves the architectural features, possibly including the inside. The limits can even extend to prescribing the materials and techniques that are used in the restoration. In Bradford, a lot of the old mills are listed so it's common for developers to get knocked back when they apply for planning permission on a mill. Usually, said mill will later burn down in mysterious circumstances and the ruins will have to be knocked down, opening the site up for development. A lot of the mills have been successfully converted into flats without the use of fire, though.

 

[Franz Joseph]

I disagree with Carl's assessment of Ethan Klein being the "adult in the room" in contrast to Ian Jomha. Ethan Klein may be many things, but a mature adult is not one of them.

This was my first Sargon video I watched in years and I tapped out after about 3 minutes. He's so fucking boring, idk how I found him appealing back in the day.

 

[p1138]

I disagree with Carl's assessment of Ethan Klein being the "adult in the room" in contrast to Ian Jomha. Ethan Klein may be many things, but a mature adult is not one of them.

The simplest assessment for everyone involved in that dumpster fire is likely the correct one and doesn't need Sargon trying to pick winners. Ethan, Ian, Hasan and his cronies, etc. are all fucking retarded.

 

[Samson Hydemanfinkelstein]

I disagree with Carl's assessment of Ethan Klein being the "adult in the room" in contrast to Ian Jomha. Ethan Klein may be many things, but a mature adult is not one of them.

The simplest assessment for everyone involved in that dumpster fire is likely the correct one and doesn't need Sargon trying to pick winners. Ethan, Ian, Hasan and his cronies, etc. are all fucking retarded.

Carl emphasizing repeatedly to start that he has never watched an H3 or Idubbbz video, because you know he is the most sophisticated of sophisticate Brits, wading into this to declare Ethan the winner because Israel and Hasan is such a fucking Carl move.

"I'm too good for any of this, unlike all of you fools, but I have declared the one on my political side of the aisle on this particular topic is the winner, hmm yes, I think that is what I've done."

 

[The Fuck's Going On Here]

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Wow, full Strawman-of-akkad on display over here. When most people in general talk about freedom or equality, they're not talking about pure anarchy or the demented end result of communism. They're talking about not having unnecessary restrictions put on them to prevent them from doing what they please so long as it does not harm others; or a general equality under legal/social systems they live in. One can still argue against those positions, but I would at least want those positions represented fairly. I mean, by Carl's same logic, anyone wanting some order and decency within society would just give up all of their rights and submit themselves to the will of a totalitarian state or someone who knows 'best' for them. Since people don't want that, they clearly don't want order or decency within society. See how easy it is to strawman positions?

Then again, given Carl is from Britain, where spicy jokes or certain no-no words are haram, I can understand why he might not understand liberty or equality. Hard to understand something that you wouldn't recognize if it walked up to you in indian clothing and threw all your tea in the harbour.