commodities

An SMBC webcomic in a tall vertical strip of panels, each paired with a bold narration caption above it. The recurring characters are a man with reddish hair, a woman, and various others. Panel 1, caption "As we lived through how good the future came": the red-haired man complains, "Where's my flying car? Where's my Martian outpost?! Where's my pocket supercomputer with a longer battery life?!" Panel 2, "We recognized the flawed heart of the system": a woman says "Science is driven by human curiosity!" and the man replies "We can do better." Panel 3, "We set up a futures market for non-existent commodities": the man declares, "I will pay a thousand dollars for a pound of T. rex meat, to be delivered in five years!" Panel 4, "The market boomed": the woman notes millions of T. rex meat contracts exist that nobody thinks are deliverable, while a man muses that producing a single medium-sized T. rex would earn 60 billion dollars. Panel 5, "Major biotech firms became interested": a scientist breaks off mid-sentence to ask "Is it time to cure cancer?" and another sighs "Why do people always ask that?" Panel 6, "And the invisible hand of the market gave a great big noodle finger to evolutionary history": woman shouts "Science!", man shouts "Capitalism!", and a green T. rex looms behind them. Panel 7, "There was a brief panic, as buyers tried to renege on contracts": the red-haired man admits, "Turns out I don't love the idea of paying a week's wages for a pound of lizard meat." Final panel, "A brief panic": with the T. rex looming over him, the man says "Okay, I'll pay. ... Isn't it illegal to threaten people with dinosaur attack?" and the T. rex retorts, "Show me where it says that in the constitution!" Votey: a hand-drawn caption reading "I challenge all vegetarians to promise to eat dino-clones."