Remember FarmVille? A few years back it was the most
popular game on Facebook, and even though I have zero interest in playing games
on my social networks, I would see these little bright green fields in my feed as others played. I was fascinated by the idea of
thousands of people growing crops and caring for flocks and herds of farm
animals that were all just flickering pixels on their
screens.
And people were spending real money inside the game,
which seemed like a natural enough progression, especially when you look at how
money, goods and stock are traded today. Screens dominate the floor of modern
stock markets, and prodigious computing power is devoted to mediating their daily
business. Everything under the sun is traded largely via flickering screens. It
seems ephemeral, yet very real fortunes are made and lost every day in the
markets.
Around this time there were also some news stories
circulating about efforts to grow beef in the lab. So far this is still
extraordinarily expensive, but if the process could be scaled up there is real
potential to create solutions that might feed the world's growing population
while being more humane to livestock animals and using up less water and land resources.
It's a very science fictional idea on it's own. Kind of feels like we're one
step closer to a food replicator.
Add a family trip to Carlsbad Caverns, mix well, and Cattle Futures was the result. I enjoyed writing it immensely and am delighted
that it found a home at 99 Pine Street. Be sure to stick around
and check the other stories, artwork and poetry.
