Before this lecture, I had only heard of trading futures for food such as gourds or pumpkins used as jokes. For example Homer from the Simpsons investing in pumpkin futures or that individual from wsb investing a large amount of money into gourd futures. So seeing where these futures came from was really interesting. I also found it interesting how similar this was to options trading

I agree with Solnit's definition of technology, it being a "knowledge of an art ...or a device for altering the world", and based on what I listened to about the Ghost Dance, I can see how it is a technology. The Ghost Dance may have been a way for the indigenous people to practice their culture, it was also a technology used by the government and media rather than the indigenous peoples themselves. Clearly this dance was unfortunately used against the indigenous peoples which later led to the massacre. The Ghost Dance was a piece of technology that was used against them to oppress Native American influence and culture.

Viewing the map of the railroad system progressing was something that I found surprising. The size that it became compared to when it was established really shows capitalism as a driving force for innovation and technology. But on the other hand, we also must notice what happened to environment around these tracks as well as what happened to the indigenous people originally living on that land.