Aberrant Lucidity

Why is the stock market allowed?  Seriously; why do we allow so-called  “investors” manipulate everything about our economy?  On the one hand it's international legalized gambling that not only affects the livelihoods of the investors, but potentially hundreds of millions if not billions of people in the world and on the other hand it's used for currency manipulation and strong-arming new entries to the market into complying with the established market (or preventing entry altogether).  I wouldn't call that a free market so much as a market controlled tightly by the very people who the regulations are supposed to protect everyone else from.   Do you realize that “speculators” can lie, cheat and manipulate the perception of the value of existing and future goods?  Some ultra-wealthy guys in New York can basically decide what percentage of Americans can afford to drive to work and buy bacon each month.  The immediate repercussions of decisions made by “stockholders” (not to b

My ex-girlfriend could be very… expressive when she was upset.  She also  didn't   get things the way other people would. I told her we were breaking up, I  couldn't  see her anymore and she needed to get her things and leave.  She was upset, naturally.  She said, “I  can't  believe  you're  breaking up with me over this puddle on the kitchen floor.” I shook my head and said, “You can’t?  Really?  First of all, dear, even though I had much more important issues to attend to you refused to clean it up.  Second, it was a lot of blood. Third, you fucking stabbed me over using the last of the ranch dressing!"

As a futurist there are a couple of things I  can't  wait for. One of them is already here.  You know what  I'm  talking about?  Google glass; now hear me out!  I know some of the early adopters have been, well, kind of dickish about their toys.  I think  I've  heard the term ‘glassholes’ thrown about.  I think it’s a great technology.  It kind of looks stupid as hell, but at the same time it’s not far off from what people several decades back thought the future would look like.  I’m going to be a little judgmental about this whole thing though.  If you don’t think that this technology is inevitable… take a moment here and try to remember how you gained knowledge prior to the early 90s.  When a piece of trivia came up and an argument ensued, how did you settle the argument?  It’s kind of hard to remember now, isn’t it, folks?  Did you carry around your parents cell phone with its own carrying case for the battery, which did not have even basic features like text?  Did