<nettime> FW: NYSE Officials Plan Animal Sacrifice on Exchange Floor

["Bruce Sterling" <bruces@well.com>]

----------
From: futurefeedforward@futurefeedforward.com
To: <bruces@well.com>
Subject: NYSE Officials Plan Animal Sacrifice on Exchange Floor
Date: Sat, Jan 13, 2001, 07:25 PM




May 8, 2064

NYSE Officials Plan Animal Sacrifice on Exchange Floor

ELIZABETH, NJ--New York Stock Exchange officials today unveiled plans to
sacrifice a "flawless, golden calf" on the Exchange's new, high-fashion
trading floor later in the month.  "Our aim here at the NYSE is to do
everything possible to protect our member firms and listing companies,"
explains NYSE spokesperson Will Furggle, "including taking all measures
recommended by cutting-edge science.  Our theorists tell us that this
sacrifice will have an enormous positive impact 10, 20, even 30 years out."

 NYSE researchers prescribed the sacrifice on the basis of an application
of the precepts of chaos and complexity theories to the "ecology" of the
Exchange.  "The NYSE is a dynamic ecosystem," notes NYSE Chaos Chief
Miranda Reapes.  "At its heart is a fairly ordered complex system, but at
the periphery there are eddies, pools of chaos.  These eddies interact,
liminally, with the biotic systems they overlap.  These interactions don't
mean anything in the short term, but the sensitivity of the system to
initial conditions is such that, over time, modulating these interactions
can have a significant impact.  This sacrifice will be the proverbial
butterfly flapping its wings in China."

 Reached in his drawing-room on the Exchange floor, long-time NYSE veteran
and J.P. Morgan VP Alfonso Evening responded to news of the sacrifice:  "I
don't hold much truck with those chaos people, but, the whole thing does
make a kind of sense to me.  The Floor is pretty much just ceremonial
nowadays anyway.  Used to be that we would actually exchange money and
securities down here.  Now I'm just constantly cinching up this damn BOSS
corset and making the rounds with my calling cards."

 Others are more critical of the plans.  "This is yet another example of
the developed world appropriating without compensation the discoveries of
traditional and indigenous peoples around the world," points out Josephine
Pow, Yale Law Professor and founding member of the Free Information League.
 "We saw it when the big genetics and drug companies stole knowledge of
traditional medicines, reverse-engineered them, then turned around and
exploited them on the basis of government-protected patents.  This is the
same story all over again.  These "chaos" people have suddenly discovered
the value of a number of traditional cultural practices.  And then they
exploit them with no thought of compensating the people whose knowledge
they have stolen."

 The NYSE plans call for the sacrifice to take place at noon on a Friday,
and for each of the members of the exchange to imbibe a thimbleful of the
calf's blood.  The calf itself, currently stabled on the visitor's
observation deck, is, as recommended by the experts, entirely gold in
color, and without blemish.  The calf was genetically manufactured by
Perdue Meat Sciences to meet the Exchange's specifications.

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