Among the things I did tonight (it is late where I am won't be able to stay around for long) were to check the prediction of the psychic octopus for tomorrow's exciting match between Germany and Spain (Spoiler according to the Octopus: Spain wins!) and watching Unthinkable. In between of course I watched the Netherlands come close to crushing Uruguay while remaining unconvinced but that is only somewhat pertinent. (That is to the extent that the favorite effect helps or hinders a team).
The first thought that came to me regarding the Octopus is that the animal and its predictions have become so famous that it is now unclear whether it is predicting or determining outcomes. Will the the Spaniards play with just a little bit more flair and the Germans just a bit more defensively than would otherwise be the case? Or will the Germans be that much more determined to win? Hard to know.
Later I was walking the dog after watching the aforementioned movie (a fairly well done thriller involving the ticking time bomb and torture dilemma. Another spoiler: the US government goes for deep torture from on high at the merest hint of a nuclear threat. Having adopted torture, they balk at the final logical conclusion of what they have embarked on, and, in the end, a timer does reach zero.
Is the self-fulfilling prophecy here that we will immediately go to torture (as the movie posits) and lose all our moral superiority or that there will be a nuclear or other unimaginably awful attack on America unless we lose all humanity, as our assailants have?
I want to close more in the spirit of the Octopus's predictions, particularly regarding November. The Americal psychic octopus is telling us that the Democrats will lose big. Do we fight harder because of that prediction or do we let that prophecy come true?