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Quote by Jean Baudrillard

“This kind of speculation reached a high point with the Pentagon's initiative of creating a 'futures market in events', a stock market of prices for terrorist attacks or catastrophes. You bet on the probable occurrence of such events against those who don't believe they'll happen. This speculative market is intended to operate like the market in soya or sugar. You might speculate on the number of AIDS victims in Africa or on the probability that the San Andreas Fault will give way (the Pentagon's initiative is said to derive from the fact that they credit the free market in speculation with better forecasting powers than the secret services). Of course it is merely a step from here to insider trading: betting on the event before you cause it is still the surest way (they say Bin Laden did this, speculating on TWA shares before 11 September). It's like taking out life insurance on your wife before you murder her. There's a great difference between the event that happens (happened) in historical time and the event that happens in the real time of information. To the pure management of flows and markets under the banner of planetary deregulation, there corresponds the 'global' event- or rather the globalized non-event: the French victory in the World Cup, the year 2000, the death of Diana, The Matrix, etc. Whether or not these events are manufactured, they are orchestrated by the silent epidemic of the information networks. Fake events.”

Quote by Jean Baudrillard

Work

The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact

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Author

Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard was a French philosopher known for his critical studies on consumerism, media, and semiotics. His theories have had a profound impact on postmodernism and cultural studies. more

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“The days of passengers sitting still during plane hijackings ended with 9/11. Before then, the worst that would have happened was that you'd probably spend a few days on a runway in a banana republic while the hijackers made their demands. On September 11th, 2001, it was just fireballs of instant death as the planes got deliberately crashed by the terrorists. From that point on, passivity was never an option again.”