Newsgroups: talk.bizarre Path: netcom.com!dhalgren From: dhalgren@netcom.com (dhalgren) Subject: free market theosophistry Message-ID: Organization: frolick and gambol, inc, west coast office Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 11:47:20 GMT in medias res: "Don't hand me that free-market saw again. Keynesian free market economics are a joke. I mean, 'Perfect information.' Really. As if." "They're just *models*. You use them for what they're good for -" "i.e. lining bird cages. Look at the currency market. Your buck dropped twelve percent against the yen -- but what does that mean to you? Sure, you're glad you're already into that Miata. Sure, you won't be seeing any of those things that crunch like apples and taste like pears anytime soon. But, seriously my dear Holmes, could you pry me off my fence post and get me to spit this straw outta my mouth -- on account of a currency devaluation? NO -- because of IMPERFECT INFORMATION -- and that's where the whole barrel of worms comes tumbling down at the seams. Bugger factors." "What?" "Economics is all bugger factors. Like the string of 4's in Bode's Law. Or the cosmological constant. Or the role of men in Neutopianism, or MacKinnonism, or Dworkinism. I like saying that. 'Dworkinism. Dworkinism. Join the movement - get dworkin' today.'" "What the hell are you talking about?" "BUGGER factors. You CS types call them 'kludges.' Elegance is what I'm talking about. Like LISP versus BASIC. Or something." "Or something, yeah. So you don't think the currency market's good for anything?" "Hey, I didn't say that, I'm a music fan, yeah. You can't find a better ontophony than the floor of a hopping currency exchange. You know, you get on a stock exchange, you're contaminated with rumors. Real information, like the fact that BioTinkerGenome built a better mouse. That's like muddied-up themes from Copland drifting all over an unsigned staff. Currency exchange, on the other hand, is pure 'Art of Fugue.'" "Homogeneity." "It's powerful stuff, yeah. Ever try to eat about a gallon of ramen noodles?" "No." "-- well, you CAN. Look, I was thinking. That's what's wrong with the Internet." "Gallons of ramen noodles?" "NO. Uh, well, maybe. But, also, no homogeneity. Remember when they built the transcontinental railroad of cold iron and it split the bison herds in two?" "No, and neither do you. Beefalo. Mmmm." "Ok. Think about this. We had a horse era. Then we had an iron era. Then we had a copper era -- telephone and telegraph -- and, for a little while in the 60's, when dead dinosaurs were still in good supply, we had an ASPHALT era. God, that was glorious. Great world-spanning webworks of black velvet tarmac. Elvis." " -- 103 octane. Twelve-bolt rears. Ten inch slicks -- Red Lines." " -- Firestone Wide Ovals. Cragar welds. A moment of silence, please." "Yeah. [Grasshopper and the Hype Doctor bow their heads a moment, in tandem.] -- But now it's the information era, and I've drowned your sorry argument in a tired cliche." "I'm gonna venture off into uncharted waters here, so bear wif' me." "'Where you BEEN, my brother?'" "You. Cannot. Sustain. The. Magic. On. A. Heterogeneous. Medium." "Ah, OK, I begin to get it. You mean twisted pair here, an old copper phone line there, a fiber optic sprintlink over THERE --" "Coax T3 line. Capacitance, my god, I got nothing against it, but Ouspensky, right? Imagine trying to stretch your silver cord down that Atlantic cable in between layers of gutta-percha, for chrissake." "Ouspensky had nothing to do with that. You're thinking Albertus Magnus. Or maybe Robert Fludd." "Quit joking around here. I'm serious -- especially when it gets into arsenic or gallium doped wafers and all your highly-touted information is represented by 'holes.' Nothingness. A METAPHOR." "'A TOAST TO THE BOOTY. A TOAST TO THE BOOTY.'" The Hype Doctor sighs, then; leaves off educating Grasshopper to stare out the window. Acid and base raindrops splatter against it in an invisble nonpareil mosaic -- you know the one, Martin Gardner's wet dream spread out over a smooth phenolphthalein surface. Silence is golden; but, as the Doctor said, it's all alloys these days. Grasshopper speaks: "Look, man, cheer up. There's always the Malthusian problem." The Hype Doctor grins, weariness lifting from his features -- or is it just a stage trick? No matter. "What makes you call it a *problem*?" dave da capo -- FISH APHRODISIAC - and it's you they'll love. dhalgren@netcom.com