John Oliver points out how Afghanistan’s political instability was “literally a plot point in Rambo III” from 1988, and then suggests what could have been done to improve the dialog (spoiler alert):
Afghan: This is Afghanistan. Alexander the Great tried to conquer this country. Then Genghis Kahn. Then the British. Now Russia. […] Ancient enemy make prayer about these people. […] It says may god deliver us from the venom of the cobra, teeth of the tiger and the vengeance of the Afghan. Do you understand what this means?
Rambo: That you guys don’t take any shit?
Afghan: Yes, something like this.
John as Afghan instead: Sure, but also our political system has long been defined by other countries’ imperial self interests. You understand what that means?
John as Rambo: No, no I don’t.
John as Afghan: Yeah, I didn’t think so. Yeah, you know what, I’m getting we’ll see you guys in roughly fifteen years.
The whole thing is worth a watch.
John’s not wrong about most of it. He nails the point that America “disastrously intervened” (going back to 1980) and has an obligation to get people out. Thus he’s right there’s a lot of responsibility.
However, he could have taken a harder look at what that responsibility means. It’s going to be more than just accepting refugees.
A new chapter is about to unfold in Afghanistan where political moderates aspire to take control back from extreme right-wing religious militias that the US extreme-right had pushed into power (Mujaheddin then Taliban).
If the US can survive the January 6th attempts to seize its own capitol in DC, perhaps it will learn how to help Afghans survive Kabul being seized by similar tribes (and have some freedom to do something about it).
Or let me put it another way, a nuclear Pakistan overrun by extremist right-wing religious militas is the kind of regional effect that the US, Russia and China aren’t going to just sit back and ignore.
An infamous blackface performance by Tesla indicates to me the company is promoting a fantasy of robots that invokes a discussion of slavery.
What do you see here?
Source: Internet image search for “Tesla slave”
Does a white man dressed all in black seem odd standing next to a robot made to appear like a black woman dressed all in white?
I mean if the robot is supposed to represent humans, why not also have that robot dressed all in black just like every man who gets on that stage?
And why not have the robot appear with a white face like the man standing next to it?
More to the point, is this a mock-up for a petite black woman standing next to her white male owner (e.g. why did Tesla announce 5’8″ and 125 lb with large hips as their ideal robot form when not even a prototype product exists)?
Several white men have reacted to me with shock and disgust when I bring up these simple observations.
One man literally sent me a message of black text on a white screen trying to tell me this robot face HAS to be black because a white interface doesn’t work.
I wrote back with black text on white interface “can you read this”?
Let’s go even deeper and take a look at some history of racism. It’s curious to me because those most familiar with the tragedy of blackface have NOT objected my comparison of the Tesla vision to slavery.
The influence of minstrelsy and racial stereotyping on American society cannot be overstated.
Thus I humbly ask that the sad and painful experience of a blackface performance be viewed by everyone, such as the following one, to learn real American racism history and gain perspective on harms today:
Now watch Tesla’s product pre-pre-announcement (no technology or product actually exists, it’s all just theory) in context of blackface dance, as it appears to have little purpose other than to use a product launch to put on a blackface stunt.
The surrounding commentary from Tesla doesn’t help move my impression in any way about the connections here.
…designed to eliminate “dangerous, repetitive and boring tasks,” like bending over to pick something up, or go to the store for groceries, Musk said. “Essentially the future of physical work will be a choice.”
That is slavery talk. Creating a robotic black woman “bending over” for him, getting groceries, making physical work optional for him… all of that is consistent with the narrative of slavery.
Bending over? Seriously. Musk is trying to say he is building a feminine robot to bend over for him, and wants to pass that off as something safety related?
In a seemingly like-minded comment, Musk emphasized an odd definition of how he expects to remain in control.
“We’re setting it such that it is at a mechanical level, at a physical level, you can run away from it and most likely overpower it”
They are shackling it so it can’t run too far, making it easy to leave it behind, and also be overpowered? Come on.
None of this makes any sense in terms of actual market needs, let alone actual security and safety controls (e.g. the “you” in his statement seems to imply a large white man). Musk claiming there will be “no shortage of labor” due to this robot announcement while in the next sentence saying “not yet though, because this robot doesn’t work ha ha ha” has to be evidence of an unhealthy mind.
It’s so far outside actual robotics and instead a sad display of tech-driven fantasy of white men with enslaved petite black women being physically dominated… it’s no wonder no women were on stage during such a presentation, or alone anyone black. On top of all that, I have to wonder who thought I was a good idea to have the petite blackface robot symbolically standing behind all these men, obscured by them.
Again, a bunch of men dressed in black in front of a black scene doesn’t make sense when the robot is supposed to be the focus. Might as well dress the robot in all black too? Something is just totally off with the disconnect, the clear dehumanization of a machine that is meant to appear as human as possible.
Credit: Pablo Guerrero/@art_is_2_inspire
All that being said, it could be I’m totally wrong here. Maybe we’ll find out the look Tesla was going for instead was the executioner’s hood.
The Smithsonian offers a detailed look of why and how a book published in 1632 England ended up with a cipher on its cover:
This volume, bound in fine leather, is the only other known to be marked with her cipher; designed with the aid of a bookbinder or perhaps by Wroth alone, the cipher must have been intended to remind Herbert of their love, for the jumbled letters unscramble to spell the fictional lovers’ names, “Pamphilia” and “Amphilanthus.”
Source: The Smithsonian. “Xenophon’s Cyropaedia belonged to Lady Wroth’s son. On the cover are entwined letters, a cipher, referring to her illicit love affair with his father.”
