Wednesday, October 22, 2008

In Zurich

Earlier this evening I watched people in the Supermarket. They were making choices, silently, observing their options, contemplating slowly, comparing prices and packaging. But this was the wine section, or the meat. It was the chocoloate section.

I brought dahl and rice with me on the plane and cooked dinner in the guesthouse: a pete-style dahl, with tomatoes and coconut cream, and then I added this strange UFO-style swiss orange squash. I have a kitchen here and even cumin and ground corriander are provided .

For evening entertainment, I'm reading the automatic earth and I don't know what to think. These guys think we're over: that this is the big one. Last drinks for Capitalism. It looks like they know a thing or two on how the business work. The basic line is: this is a fictional economy, and all novels have an ending.

This is not unfamiliar stuff. You know: the contradiction of exponential growth in a finite world. The fiction of value - you know, the credit card in your wallet? it's plastic. - I knew a day of reckoning will come, when people realize, it's just plastic, and paper - it's worthless, meaningless. How long can this monopopy game continue? well, as long as we all believe in it, it will, and until we run of the last jungle spot to build a hotel on. I was hoping we still have a while to go before we reach these points, even with peak oil and all that. But the guys on the automatic earth think we're nearly there. Soon we'll reachthe no-return point when the system stops believing its bedtime stories.

2 comments:

Niki said...

Hey London Mink, what are you doing in Zurich? Thanks for the leaving the automatic earth link in my comments section, i'm looking forward to checking it out.

mink said...

Hi niki, I went there for a job interview, a post-doc fellowship. Now back in London.

The automatic earth blog is scary stuff. I recommend the comments thread, look for Stoneleigh (the co-contributer) she sounds like she knows a thing or two and does not have the cocky tone of her co-writer Ilargi. It's the well know gender dymanics I'm afraid. Why do man have to sound this way I wonder.