Re: The Grief of Metal, Melting.

Les Rallizes Denudes:

'Romance of the Black Grief'

***

It just had to happen. My earlier fears about the impact of e-cards recently used in Tokyo's transport system, and increasingly in shops near to stations have been verified. The future viewed in incremental changes, happening now:

Yesterday morning, I was *almost* refused entry on to a bus; today I was made to wait at the front of the bus, despite being first in the queue, barred from alighting. Waited over five minutes.

The reason?

I possessed real cash, - the metallic and paper type.

The driver had no change at all; the passengers all possessed robot or penguin emblazoned IC plastic cards - the material that liquids which replenish our thirst are put in. Plastic: the word used to describe something that is 'fake', 'artificial' and 'without substance'. Hell, Ray Davies made an under-rated song, 'Plastic Man' as his initial rise to fame melted down in the late 70s. Sang that "plastic people look the same, yeah, yeah, yeah."

Metal vs. plastic: which is build to last?
Metal vs plastic: which is stronger?
Metal vs plastic: which burns easiest?

Metal wins hands dowm, but metal hasn't been financed by Big Business and childish advertisements aimed at the Japanese LCD (lowest common denominator) and is free of 'kawaii' images.

The market dictates. How right it is. What a dictator. Hidden behind the ever-revolving wheels of commerce. Anodyne lemmings don't realise when they are being deprived of substance. Blissfully unaware of their reduced rights. And because of the Mass Bastards, I, too, had to purchase plastic.

IC cards. Who sees? Do masses care?

They follow the cute, the childish. They s(u)p(p)ort those who bar them from attending to their own, mined.

Is the decline of metal as authenticated currency due to Mr. Aarket, with his commercial fiends making this a must be?

I don't know, but I love coins and paper money, and here's why:

1) I can calculate coins/paper currency in my head - plastic cards don't require calculation by a human
2) I can jingle the coins - plastic disappoints, sound-wise.
3) History is embedded in coin/paper money design - plastic...well?
4) They are weighty. Plastic is as light as a disappearing right.
5) They aren't subject to mechanical error. Cards are subject to machine error.
6) Heads or tails.

The new cards have NO LINK to Japanese history, and instead show how kidult-like the masses have become. Their designers are laughing at their unknowing, prison-like robotic states.

Such are the ongoing events of the modern reformation.

Why do they need to invent robots when fleshy one's are all over the place. Humanimals are coming say some, why are the robots being promoted?. It can't be to replace the human manual, can it?

Heavy metal or cheap plastic? What's the better?

PluS - More Rallizes in supposed decline (1982)