Michael Greenwell

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable. – Aldous Huxley

BET YOURSELF TO EXTINCTION

Paddypower and I believe at least one other bookmaker have been offering odds on which animal will be the first to go extinct as a result of the Gulf oil crisis.

Thusly demonstrated in the same story are the two meanings of the word “sick”.

However, I don’t really find any of this surprising anymore. We have been gambling ourselves into extinction for years.

Allow me to demonstrate the thought process using a gambling analogy,  which seems appropriate given the story above….

It is a bit like a penny falls machine. More and more gets piled into the system and all the while the pile (in this case  it is a pile of toxic sh*t and not money) gets bigger. However, the coins do not fall immediately. Each little nudge moves something into another space where it wouldn’t have settled without the disruption, and with next coin everything is disrupted a little more and so on.

Eventually, the pressure gets so cramped that some things just have to fall and you get a pay-off – except that this time when the pay-off comes, it won’t be good for anybody.

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4 Responses to BET YOURSELF TO EXTINCTION

  1. Paul M May 28, 2010 at 10:23

    Fucking hell, that’s unbelievable.

  2. Michael Greenwell May 28, 2010 at 11:17

    Their excuse is that it “draws attention to the crisis” or some such guff.

  3. Paul M May 28, 2010 at 11:24

    I suppose you could say that – or it’s just a dark piece of humour. But I think you’re right, epitomises the culture we find ourselves in – trivialise the important, or make money off of it.

  4. Pingback: Oil Related Culture Jams and Posters: You bet yourself to extinction « Bear Market News

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