Panic – hottest all-time business model

[xchrom]

http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/1233601-panic-hottest-all-time-business-model

In his new thriller, historian and bestselling author Robert Harris describes how a man can get filthy rich off pure fear. The plot goes like this: Brilliant physicist Dr. Hoffmann (a nod to Edgar Allan Poe), former worker at the Large Hadron Collider, develops a hedge-fund computer.

VIXAL-4 scans the worldwide web at millisecond-speed for signs of panic, hunting for words such as “terror”, “alarm”, “horror”, “end”, “downfall”, “crisis”, “bankruptcy”, “danger”, “abyss”, “anxiety”, and “core meltdown”. When the fear spikes, Hoffman can swiftly place bets in falling markets – raking in billions in mere seconds. Annually, the hedge fund brings in a return of more than 80 percent.

Naturally, things get messy. The machine starts to speculate on its own initiative and sparks an epidemic of fear. Hoffmann’s marriage, house and psyche hit the rocks, along with the entire world economy.

Escalating headlines

Imagine for a moment that this work of fiction has long been a reality. The cause of the euro crisis would simply be a result of a collective generation of fear. Oscillating fear. Copied fear. Marauding fear that leaps from mind to mind. Mass contagion. One wouldn’t even need a central computer bank in the style of Big Brother or HAL to feed into this entire system. The “crisis” would only be a crisis because everyone believed it was a crisis.

[OneGrassRoot]

1. Recommended n/t

[dtexdem]

2. I thought you said this was a work of fiction.

I didn't realize it was a documentary. ;-)

[xchrom]

3. LOL! Nt