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Inside the house the telephone keeps ringing
With an endless stream of preprogramed robocalls
Endlessly repeating their preprogamed scams.
In another room, an automatic program on a desk top computer
Keeps ordering magazine subscriptions,
Entertainment videos, pharmacy prescriptions,
Automatically renewed office software suites.
All night long automatic, arbitrage trading programs
Trade blocks of stocks and bonds,
Gold, bitcoin, lumber, oil;
And before you get up,
Half your money is already gone.
The routes of cruise lines and containter ships,
The flight paths of international flights,
The ceaseless movement of transcontinental commerce
Are all managed by unknown, computerized programs
Figuring departure points and arrival times,
Distance travelled, the number of passengers,
The weight of the cargo,
Factoring in the weather and the fuel cost
In the blink of an eye,
Without a human hand in sight.
Computer programs run the traffic lights,
Keep an eye on the city streets.
Send out the robocops.
Bring back the surveillance drones.
The whole world seems like one vast operating system
Filled with programs running programs
Compiling and sorting and applying data
In spread sheets spread out across virtual offices
And networks of virtual offices
Fitting into some great, master program
Somewhere up in the cloud.
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