The Countdown
“What’s going on in this candy-coated heart of darkness?” - Wreck it Ralph
I have definitely taken a blog break in the past couple of weeks. I needed my sanity back, all this stuff in the world requires a detox from time to time and yes, it's not great stuff but as I prepared for my weekend with the Netflix documentary 'Social Dilemma' I suddenly realised that, to rip a quote from Bob Marley "The people trying to make the world a bad place are not taking a day off; why should I?". There it is, I hit the ground running on this one.
As a trader, I know better than anyone that the world does not fit into the box that you want it to fit in; that power belongs to the state actors like Russia and the United States, corporations like Google and Facebook; so yes, it is what it is, people are going to believe something different from you, yes, people are going to like different men and women from you and yes, they are definitely going to like different experiences from you. So, how the f@$# did we end up so far on the other side of the isle from our neighbours if this is suppose to be the normal human position? I'll tell you how...
It's not because George Floyd was killed for paying with a counterfeit $20 bill over the counter or because China accidentally or otherwise released the SARS Cov-2 virus (in case you missed Covid,19 Crime of the century) on the world or because Donald Trump built a wall with a NAFTA country. No, it's because we are so in our own bubble of psycho babble, yes, the kind of psycho babble that says SARS Cov-2 is a myth, the kind of psycho babble that says the Jews will poison us all in our sleep, the kind of psycho babble that thinks Black lives matter is actually a platform for black lives. It's because we have allowed morally bankrupt billionaires to run our countries and convince us that they actually care about your jobs, your homes or anything else that matters to you. It's because we think Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube is what the world really thinks. I hate to break it to you but just like 70% of all trading is done by algorithms, a hell of a lot of internet babble is just click farms in China, Russia and other parts of the world simply creating a buzz and yes, Facebook knows about it, Google knows about it but who cares? As long as you keep using and buying and they keep making Dollars, the world can burn. After all someone will put it back together again.
So yes, it is a countdown. The timer started a few years ago and we don't have a lot of time left. It will start with the re-election of Donald Trump or Joe Biden. It will be called electoral fraud, it will be blamed on everyone; the left will say Trump peddled fear and threats of far right retaliation and they can't do another 4 years of this. The right will say, those so called ballots found in the mystery river is what gave the election away and the real racists will say, we need to save our country from the religious zealots and so it will start... The death of democracy.
Or we could start to take a step back from social media and acknowledge that, it is normal to have a different opinion and that should stimulate healthy debate that will create common ground because that's what has worked in the past and has proven to work no matter the country. We could clear our eyes and realise that social media is not social, it is a bubble media, that stops us from seeing anyone else's point of view and is a gag on intelligent debate, the kind we use to have with our neighbours, our friends and our communities; the kind governments use to have before Twitter became the megaphone for unfiltered bullshit. We can start by demanding what we want for ourselves from the corporations we work for, the governments we vote in and I know for me, I could not give a damn about border walls or the religion of people or the colour of anyone's skin... Why? Because that s'$& does not put food on the table and it never will. I rest my case...
