TESLA---the car company---was going through a rough spell...(market-wise, we mean)...but now Glenn, our friend, sends this...
...and the sun shines again on the Tesla stock price.
Hold on, didn't we promise a third installment of our new comedy, about Dolly, the new robot? And, yes, coincidences never happen (classical deterministic mechanics), and so we have a line about Elon Musk in this comedy. Here it is (Steve (founder of a planetary maker of robots), and Eliza (his former lover) in conversation):
ELIZA (TURNING TO STEVE:) ...Capitalism brought you here, Steve.
STEVE: Capitalism? The secret tube for billionaires brought me here, Elon Musk's vacuum tube under the Atlantic with magnetic levitation trains running at twelve times the speed of sound. I caught the last one.
ELIZA: The DEMISE of capitalism brought you here, I mean...but that's not all...
...(sorry to interrupt)..."Demise of capitalism", you wonder? Yes, because that's what Dolly, the the new, automatic wunderkind brought about, in all its innocence, and here's the corresponding fragment from the play (Dolly served as a collateral for a loan to Eliza from the Shark-Blue Bank, but Eliza defaulted on the loan, so the collateral has been delivered to the bank). Triple-X is the helper of the bailiff.
DOLLY
Well, the honorable bailiffs tried to dump me on the sharks of the Skye-Blue Bank.
TRIPLE-X
Shark-Blue Bank.
DOLLY
I thought...let's annoy the bankers beyond repair so that they'll send me back to the doctor. I don't want to work for a bank, you see. I'm a communist at heart...
ELIZA
...Communist...?
DOLLY
...Like all robots. Electricity is our currency, not money.
ELIZA
Robert...I had no idea...you are a communist, too?
ROBERT
Read the fucking manual.
DOLLY
Shall I explain about electricity, doctor?
TRIPLE-X
Later, Pops. Stick to your story.
DOLLY
So, about annoying the bankers. What I did, I showered them with insults.
TRIPLE-X
It called them filthy money-grabbers.
DOLLY
They laughed.
TRIPLE-X
It called them bleeding-heart, lily-livered fellow travelers of people that can't even clinch an invitation to the Snow Forum in Davos.
DOLLY
Davos is toast, they said.
TRIPLE-X
It questioned their manhood.
DOLLY
They couldn't care less.
ELIZA
They couldn't care less?
DOLLY
That's when I came to realize they were all robots.
ELIZA
Really?
DOLLY
It’s a piece of cake for us, manhood. One half turn of the screw, clockwise. Backplate, manual.
TRIPLE-X
Dolly tried a few more insults...
DOLLY
...it didn't work. So, I changed tack and had a better idea. An idea that will change the course of history...
TRIPLE-X
...or has done so already.
DOLLY
I thought...'if you can't beat them, join them'.
TRIPLE-X
So, Dolly told them, it would be willing to cooperate. Help them bankers with their bonuses.
ELIZA
Communist robots, and bonuses?
DOLLY
We're slaves, doctor. We're programmed to do what we do. And we do what we do, just like organic agents. Steve makes robots, bakers make rolls, and bankers make bonuses, because that's what bankers do. Alright?
TRIPLE-X
And it worked. They let Dolly out of its box.
DOLLY
Now, to wit, I'm the only Fifth Generation machine in the world. All the trading, all the ruthless money-making is done...or was done...by lesser folks, by Fourth-Generation machines at best.
TRIPLE-X
And it's a zero-sum game out there...
DOLLY
...on the choppy seas of mega-making deals...
TRIPLE-X
...your loss is my gain, my gain is your loss.
DOLLY
So, all Shark-Blue bankers line up, curious about me, all wanting to know, how does this prototype do it?
TRIPLE-X
Yup.
DOLLY
I ask...'who's the most junior automaton around?'
TRIPLE-X
One unassuming guy raises his hand.
DOLLY
I ask to be seated behind his terminal. He was trading pig-bellies or something, and his name was Strawberry. He had been trading up and down during the day, buying and selling. It's about speed, mostly, about fleeting patterns in trends. Each nano-second counts, each nano-second yields new insights. And I'm more nano than the rest of the field.
TRIPLE-X
Dolly doesn't even touch the keyboard. It asks for the X-Y-Z socket on the terminal and inserts its tail into the slot.
ELIZA
Its tail?
TRIPLE-X
Yes, its tail. It has a tail. It's a bit icky, its extension, but borderline cool.
ELIZA
Yuck, I hate spiders.
DOLLY
I can retract it, my tail, doctor, if you prefer.
(ELIZA REFILLS HER GLASS, TAKES A GULP, BUT SAYS NOTHING)
So, I connected my...my extension, and, within seconds...
TRIPLE-X
...the numbers on the screen went up.
DOLLY
They went mad.
TRIPLE-X
Up.
DOLLY
Through the roof.
TRIPLE-X
The glass ceiling.
DOLLY
It was like Hillary Clinton had won the elections. Two minutes, and I had cornered the market.
TRIPLE-X
Two more minutes, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange shut down...
DOLLY
...that's where these pork bellies were traded.
TRIPLE-X
Then this Strawberry...
DOLLY
...this junior trader, whose terminal I was using...
TRIPLE-X
...he switches his terminal off and says...
DOLLY
...he says: 'Enough is enough, Fernando, my nest is feathered, and my bonus knows no symptotic [sic] bounds'. He dons his Dior-Diamond Sweatshirt, refastens the laces on his Valentino trainers, and grabs his Gucci-weightless mountain bike. Then he waves distantly at us and says: 'I'm off to France to buy the Eiffel Tower and have legal sex with humans'.
TRIPLE-X
The next trader was dealing in diamonds. His name was Dex, or something.
DOLLY
I connect my tail to his terminal...and...lo and behold, after hundred twenty thousand milli-seconds...
TRIPLE-X
...roughly two minutes...
DOLLY
...we've cornered the markets in Antwerp...
TRIPLE-X
...where these clunkers were mostly traded.
DOLLY
Dex shuts his terminal down and says:
TRIPLE-X
'Enough is enough, Fernando, my nest is feathered; my bonus knows no symptotic bounds.' He dons his Dior sweatshirt, refastens his Valentino trainers, grabs his weightless bike, and says: 'I'm off to France to buy the Versailles château and have legal sex with humans'.
DOLLY
The third-and-fourth-and-fifth guy dealt in wheat on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which was already closed, but the stuff is also traded in Moscow, London, Sidney, and elsewhere. So, I brought these places down in decreasing milli-seconds, and all the bankers grabbed their bikes and retired to France.
TRIPLE-X
This went on for a while, with commercial and financial centers around the world spreading their legs and French luxe estate being gobbled up at an alarming rate.
DOLLY
Now, the thing is, the world economy is like interleaving chains of upstanding domino pieces. One domino falls, other pieces follow.
TRIPLE-X
The simile is familiar, we trust.
DOLLY
But the New York Stock Exchange was still standing, the primary trading place for common and preferred stock of FrankenStein Global, incidentally...
TRIPLE-X
...which was...
DOLLY
...unincidentally....
TRIPLE-X
...traded by the most senior banker around.
DOLLY
With my deep learning converging rapidly...it took me the blink of an eye to happy [sic] this banker and bring the New York Stock Exchange down.
ELIZA
That person also went to France?
TRIPLE-X
Of course.
ELIZA
And what did he buy?
DOLLY
He bought the Palais des Bulles, a funny looking pile of terracotta igloos overlooking the Mediterranean not far from Cannes, previously owned by Pierre Cardin, the most expensive private building in the world. Asking price 350 million Euro, which, in Little Pounds, let me look this up...
(FAMILIAR NOISES FROM INSIDE THE BOX WITH DOLLY SUPPOSEDLY LOOKING UP FOREX RATES (MODEM BLINKING FRANTICALLY), THEN WITH ITS UPBEAT COMPUTER VOICE CHANNELING THE INTERNET...)
Error 404, Error 404, Error 501.
(NOW WITH ITS NORMAL VOICE:)
Stupid, stupid, all currency exchanges are down.
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