Brilliant history/comedy by The Amber Ruffin Show explaining why Americans desperately need a White History Month:

I do feel the need to point out her citation of Lincoln, while true, evades the important context of his speech.

First, after being repeatedly fraudulently bashed by his political opponents as someone who would dare to marry blacks to whites (narratives about protecting white women from black men is a long-time propaganda method), Lincoln said he was racist enough to not do the things he was being accused. It wasn’t his best moment to be sure and there’s no excusing it, but you have to understand he was saying in his experience he didn’t see whites and blacks as equals. He still was an abolitionist, just a racist one.

Second, this attitude changed dramatically after he became President. Like President Grant, who often reflected on where he had made mistakes and who worked to overcome and amend them, Lincoln came to regard blacks as equals. So the context is really a terrible defense he used in the heat of contest to prove he was worthy of votes even by racist Americans, which reverses completely into a story of him emancipating slaves and (through new experiences) finally describing blacks as equal to whites.

This also could be titled “quick intro to Silicon Valley ethics”:

• 1617 rent-able carriages (shared ride) by order of monarch
• 1662 fixed routes for shared ride by order of monarch
• 1823 Stanislas Baudry’s Omnés Omnibus (for everyone)
• 1853 Impériale omnibus (upper deck cheaper)
• 2008 Google bus (no poor people allowed)
• 2017 Lyft shuttle (no poor people allowed, for profit)

The last step was perfectly captured by many critics who can write better than me:

And the latest piece of truly visionary invention has come courtesy of transport company and Uber rival Lyft. The company has created what they’re calling the ‘Lyft Shuttle’, which allows users to “ride for a low, fixed fare along convenient routes with no surprise stops”. All you have to do, the company says, is “walk to the stop. Hop in. Hop out. Walk to destination”.

It’s a bus. They’ve invented the bus.

It’s not the first time a disruptive ride-sharing app has accidentally invented the bus, either. Uber has also been guilty of the same thing.

Despite the fact that THIS IS VERY OBVIOUSLY JUST A FUCKING BUS AND EVERYBODY KNOWS HOW BUSES WORK, some Twitter users have found the whole concept kind of difficult to get their heads around.

But hey, maybe we’re being too harsh on Lyft. Yes, they may have just invented the bus, the first example of which was created in 1823, but their version has loads of disruptive new elements. Case in point:

Lyft Shuttle: buses without the poor people. What an innovation.

I made some jokes about this in my KiwiconX presentation, all from personal experience hacking the Silicon Valley bus systems, and I wrote up the curious history of the apartheid “lift system“, but nothing as funny as the above.

I don’t think anyone marketing James Bond movies has properly described them for what they really are.

Look at this awful release poster for example, from “Diamonds are Forever”

Then tell me this narrative has been anything more than misogynist garbage.

Do my words sound too harsh?

Ok, look at how the creator of James Bond describes his own man in an Irish Times article:

“He’s got his vices and very few perceptible virtues except patriotism and courage, which are probably not virtues anyway.” Read that again. He has vices. He doesn’t have any real virtues. If you think James Bond is a fascist pig then Fleming seems largely on your side.

No virtues. Fleming would agree with you if you called Bond a fascist pig.

Just to reiterate here, it should never have been news to anyone that James Bond is an awful persona. His stories are meant as stark warnings about an asset-fueled self-centered toxic world we should never want.

Alas, we see recently that an actor has been making waves by saying little more than what always has been true.

In a new interview with The Red Bulletin, the actor dryly shuts down Bond’s purported chivalry. What can audiences learn from 007 and apply to their day-to-day lives? Nothing, according to Craig. “Let’s not forget that he’s actually a misogynist,” Craig said.

Chivalry what? He’s a villain.

Thank you Craig. But to be frank Craig should be ensuring he doesn’t take that role unless it’s portrayed the way he wants it to be seen. Integrity, no?

So who calls a villain chivalrous?

It’s like saying General Lee was a successful leader in the Civil War (don’t laugh too hard yet, as the US Army just published a podcast… which I won’t link here because it’s really that awful).

Anyway, “Diamonds are Forever” is a movie about assets and the underworld use of them.

It’s basically foreshadowing of the “crypto-bros” who today are messaging all over the place that they’ve figured out how to get to some “better” future world… without realizing they’re painting a 1960s-era James Bond poster and taking themselves far too seriously.

When people come at me with bubbling “bitcoin” this and “blockchain” that to describe their future fantasy I have to wonder if they will ever accept 007 is lame misogynist fiction garbage and diamonds are not precious.

Nobody with any sense of reality or humanity really wants such visions of future.

Perhaps if people watched more of “OSS 117: Le Caire, nid d’espions” instead we could laugh about all this instead of cry (foul)?