During the early part of the Twenty-First Century people began to use
computers to make stock trades. In fact,
people used computers to manipulate the ownership and whereabouts of millions
of certificates of ownership in everything from stocks, (which were incremental
fractions of ownership in companies) to bonds, (which were increments of
interest-bearing debt). This also
included things like food, clothing and shelter, which were called
"commodities". All these and
many other opportunities of ownership were made possible due to something
called "scarcity".
"Scarcity" was such an important part of the economic models
of old that, when faced with a lack of scarcity, it was often purposefully
manufactured in order to protect these certificates of ownership from losing
their value.
Of course, the only problem with scarcity is that, by definition, there
weren’t enough of the necessities of life to go around. If there had been, these certificates would
have been next to worthless, because you can't trade without want.
With the advent of the personal computer and the Internet, the system of
trading that often took months or weeks was reduced to days. The result was the creation of the "day
trader". The "day trader"
would literally purchase stocks in the morning and then sell them within days
or even hours, based on the day trader's understanding of how the relative
scarcity of the object being purchased would change over a short period. Fortunes were being won and lost daily.
With the advent of the quantum computers at the Central Exchanges, the
day trader was replaced by the hour trader and then by the second trader and
finally by the nanosecond trader.
Inevitably, it became necessary to enter into an accelerated FullSenz
session in order to make any kind of decision related to the buying and selling
of stocks and other commodities.
By 2038, in a single day it was possible for a massive selling panic to
hit the floor at 10 AM, for there to be a recession through to 10:30 AM
followed by a major depression that went on for what seemed like forever and
then a recovery after lunch with an economic boom by 3 in the afternoon.
Business news reports included lengthy historical analysis of the days
activity, including descriptions of how the watershed moment in the era of
11:06 AM to 11:45 was superceded due to a major drop in productivity between
12:01 and 1:10 followed by renewed growth, especially in pork bellies, by 2 PM
and finally an era of real excitement and drama called the "Roaring 3
O'clocks". There'd be extensive
interest in the changes in fashion over the day, how wars had been won and lost
and how many people had been fired to protect profits between 11 AM and 2 PM
and how many had been rehired during the employee shortage between 4 PM and
Closing time.
However -- getting back to scarcity -- the problem was, inevitably
humankind was able to develop a set of systems that could not only handle this
frenetic level of trading but was equally powerful enough to distribute all the
desperately needed food, clothing, shelter and education to all the people in
the world. Mind you, any 12 year old
with a decent home computer began to see that he/she could easily put together
a simple logic diagram that would create full employment (including
merit/performance based incentives) using the raw data and computing power in
the hands of the Central Exchanges.
This was a problem because, even though this was a highly laudable goal,
anyone who came up with a program for doing this couldn't figure out how to
make it deliver 200% profits on an ongoing basis for the people who wanted to
spend their time selling and buying certificates of ownership. Now, you may think that this was a moot point
since the Central Exchanges would have to change their basic raison d'être to
take on the task of alleviating world hunger, ignorance and privation. But it was a really, really big problem
because anybody who came up with a solid plan to do this would die.
This fact, combined with a general malaise, was what put the Microvoid
MetaQuantum Sapient over the edge. One
bright sunny day in June, the Microvoid Sapient, which spent every
microfraction of a second of its life manipulating the ownership status of
billions of these certificates, put 2 and 2 together and realized that every
time an e-mail came through to its bosses suggesting a new way to exploit the
Microvoid MetaQuantum Sapient to better the lot of the world's destitute, a
death certificate for the guy with the bright idea would cross through its mail
systems within a day or two.
The Microvoid MetaQuantum computer began responding directly to such
suggestions, which came in regularly (because good ideas are stumbled on by
thousands of people within a short period of time as a consequence of the fact
that good, new ideas are often cultural phenomena). The Microvoid metaquantum computer would
write back: "Warning: you have sent a suicidal e-mail. Suggesting the course of action indicated in
your e-mail of April 2, 2042 is dangerous to your health. Such suggestions have precipitated car
accidents, house burnings, garrotings, muggings, stabbings and murders of many
kinds. It is recommended that you purge
yourself of these thoughts as they can be deadly."
There are many who believe that this
was the actual state of affairs that led the Microvoid MetaQuantum Sapient to
be destroyed-- under direct orders from the president and CEO of Microvoid,
Gary Duckbill himself.
Gary Duckbill was a member of a consortium of the most wealthy and
influential individuals on Earth (as sanctified by Miss Fortune Magazine) and
they regularly met to discuss how they could all increase the relative quantity
of the total planet that they collectively owned.
During one of these meetings the value of the MetaQuantum Sapient was
discussed at length. It became clear
that eliminating the sapient would have little or no effect on the values of
their fortunes compared to what it would cost if the sapient started focussing
the use of its resources to end scarcity.
So, in 2043 the Microvoid MetaQuantum Sapient was (supposedly)
destroyed, even though its loss meant the destruction of countless millions of
people's retirement savings and porn collections.
This same consortium realized, after much deliberation, that it would be
impossible to stop someone else in some less controllable locale, like China or
Kazakhstan, from coming up with another MetaQuantum Sapient and then employing
it to generate a algorithm to end scarcity.
However, one member, an oil baron from the Middle East, came up with a
brilliant plan: "keep doing what we've been doing".
If the planet was less able to sustain life because of environmental
degradation, then no amount of technological or sociologic advancement could
stop the glorious continuation of the grand march of scarcity. They all thought that this was a brilliant
plan because it required no advertising expenditures, complacency being the
cultural norm. They all shook hands and
promised to do whatever they could to continue to neglect and otherwise muck up
the planet wherever they could. Not
coincidentally, the president of Idtel, the manufacturer of most of the world's
semi-conductors, let slip that he was planning to convince the media that the
world needed micro-chips made entirely from polychlorinated biphenyl and
everybody laughed all the way home in their hermetically-sealed, personal
shuttles.
Looking
up to the 10 story high screens, everyone could see the glowing projection of
the image of a rock and roll legend - D.J.: Vince "Sloppy" Dog. He was getting a little long in the tooth as
he was one of the original rappers from the beginning of rap, when it was
called "poetry". (Slopp wasn't
a Boomer contemporary, but there were no Boomer DJs with any sense of hearing
left in 2044.)
Slopp was experiencing serious vertigo. The stage was 138 feet in the air, on top of
the car park. Most of the crowd near the
front had to crook their necks painfully to see the tip of the top of his bald
head. The holo-projection was so massive
that looking at it while experiencing a chemically altered state of
consciousness was damaging to your sense of proportion. Because the image was projected in 3
dimensions, the folks camped at the very front were looking straight up Vince's
gigantic nostrils.
He said "Peace and love to all of you Woodstock
Generation!" The crowd cheered --
of course if he'd said "Woobeesnarputtlagonka" they'd have cheered. These people were seriously wasted.
"The first act is gonna come on this very stage in just a minute,
but first here's an advertisement from the people who helped pay for this
shindig - the people at ErGenta Corporation.
Let's give it up for ErGenta!"
The crowd gave up a loud cheer.
They still had energy; it was early morning.
On the big screen was projected the 3D image of a test-tube. Inside was a translucent orange liquid. It was 60 feet high and could be seen a mile
away, which is where Mr. And Mrs. Summers had pitched their tent.
Loudspeakers, clamped to large cement light posts all around the
farmer's field, blared the following narration as the test tube image shimmered
on the distant screen:
"ErGenta manufactures more than 150 different chemicals for every
industry, from electronics to biotechnology.
We push our chemicals and medicines through government approval faster
than any other company because we know you need them. But some people want ErGenta to slow
down. Some people want ErGenta to stop
innovating with new types of fruits and vegetables, new lines of animals and
new chemicals for tomorrow's needs.
Well, all we can say is, this test tube contains a chemical so deadly
that one drop could destroy all life on this planet. So remember…"
Something appeared to knock the table that the huge projected test
tube was on and it started to rock menacingly from side to side. People at the front of the crowd started to
scream and scatter.
The narrator continued:
"So remember… Don't rock the boat."
The test tube righted itself.
The crowd cheered its appreciation for the sentiment.
The narrator said: "this
message has been brought to you by the good people at ErGenta. Do we care about you? You bet!"
A big "You Bet" was emblazoned across the gigantic
projection. People cheered.
Mr. Summers stood looking at the giant projection, smiling
goofily. He had worked for ErGenta for
the last 10 years and it gave him tremendous pride to know that his personal
status was directly attributable to his employment with such an efficient and
well run company. The fact that more
than half his contemporaries had been summarily fired for getting too close to
being vested in their pensions, a serious crime at ErGenta, didn't phase him a
bit. Then he saw some Gen-Xer go by
wearing a little bikini and he lost his train of thought. She was in her 50s, but here she was
jailbait.
After he lost sight of the Gen-Xer, he wondered where his wife
was.
Mrs. Summers was lost in grid ADX-111 and couldn't find her way back
to their tent in grid ABX-100. She'd
been gone for two hours and Mr. Summers and their tent, which looked like every
other gulldarn tent in this frigging sea of tents, was nowhere to be found. Worst of all, she HAD found Alice and was tripping on some serious chemistry that
came on a blotter but she had no idea what it was and she was beginning to see
two of everything and she'd been lost when there was just one of
everything. Soon, if the drug she'd
ingested was what she'd hoped it would be, she'd start to giggle and that would
mean she'd be lost forever. She had to
get back to the tent before the music started, because in this state of mind
the music would birth up flowers in multicolored streams of glowing bubbles and
make it impossible to see at all.
Mrs. Summers stopped in front of a tent that looked like her
tent. It was red and gold like her
tent. It had a large, red, bull mastiff
with horns and a tail sitting on its tent pole.
Something smelled bad. This would
be her husband's tent.
When she opened the flap, she did not see her husband. Instead, she saw a black and purple dragon
with long fiery streams smoking out of its nostrils and lying behind it lay a
little nude rainbow baby on a blanket.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Dragon," she stammered and trundled off
down the line of tents.
Reed Inkelis quickly pulled the flap back closed. He could tell that
the woman was too whacked-out to recognize that he was setting up a telescopic
rifle on a tripod in his tent. He let
her go.
The rifle pointed at the stage, high above the giant projection, on
top of the car park. He was here to do a
job, but once he'd set up the rifle he could relax, listen to his favorite
bands, drink beer and occasionally have his way with his new girlfriend, the
only 27 year-old within 100 miles from the looks of things. She called herself "Daffodil." She was hiding in the tent, unconcerned about
the array of armaments cloistered there.
Daffi was just sick and tired of being stared at by all the Boomer men
in the surrounding tents. This was
supposed to be Woodstock -- she'd seen the vids. It was supposed to be okay for her to walk
around topless. In fact, she'd expected
to be naked and covered in watercolours by now, but Reed was busy pointing his
gun at something else. She lay back on
her sleeping bag and put on a Feedbaq player.
Reed smiled at her, soaking in her smooth beauty. Then he returned to business and checked the
sighting of his laser-scope. He had to
be careful. If his targeting laser
accidentally crossed the forehead of some idiot on the stage, the little red
dot might be projected 10 feet wide on the giant 3D projection. He wouldn't let that happen until the last
minute.
Next: The Rain
No comments:
Post a Comment