its proper place

He slowed down, stopping on the side of the road. Baggage had shifted to the left-hand side of his vehicle, unbalancing it. With due care, he gently moved the items back into an equilibrium of sorts, allowing the right side of his mount to bear its equal share of the weight. Moments later, without his even realizing it, he found that the baggage had shifted again, whereupon he, again, pulled over.

And, again, he restored equilibrium.

He went merrily along his path for a while, paying close attention to keeping everything in its proper place. Someone swerved into his lane, however, a potentially sticky situation narrowly avoided. This time, only some of the baggage had shifted, not all of it, for he had tried hard to stay aware of where things were despite distraction. He pulled over and repositioned the things that had crept to the front and left of the vehicle.

Once more making headway, his vehicle balanced for the time being, he decided to pay closer attention to the moment when things actually started to shift. He felt it and, for once, stopped the inequilibrium before it became pronounced.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

an anonymous intruder

Placed there by an anonymous intruder hellbent on protecting the environment and rebalancing the scales of justice, the algorithms hummed away within the financial trading system’s read-only memory. Soon, the platforms it managed were moving funds from pipeline projects to mass-transportation initiatives, shifting monies from big oil to solar-power initiatives and cooperative farming ventures.

The technicians in charge of the system worked frantically to lessen the damage being wrought upon their bosses’ bottom lines. Normally, it was rare to find even a single person from upper management in the hushed and darkened depths where the computer scientists worked. That day, however, a dozen suits were present, all red-faced and bothered.

As the algorithms shifted the weight of global finance from corporate conglomerates to ventures owned and run by the employees who daily toiled within them, an order was given to shut the whole thing down. “Our dominance is failing,” said the wide-eyed suits to each other, clammy sweat dripping from their tightly-balled fists. “To save the fortunes we’ve made by doing little more than owning the means of production and siphoning off the riches produced by the working man, we must shut this whole mess down.” The had armed and cold-heated goons give the order. Then, one by one, the servers that the algorithms had taken over winked out.

Forced to trade using pencil and paper, telephone and fax machine, onto the floors of various borse flooded a thousand and one funds managers, their skills rusty, the speed with which they once made billions off of the backs of their hard-working fellow citizens greatly reduced. Their whores and mistresses sat patiently, waiting to soothe the mounting worries of men who for too long had enjoyed an easy go at life.

Meanwhile, in the streets danced great multitudes of average people who - for a day, at best - glimpsed the promise of equality and prosperity for all.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥