Article #1

by unlearn

Multiple application smart card technology. Widespread acceptance of said technology being the goal of the Smart Card Alliance. These nifty little cards store up personal info on the card holder and can be charged up with your cash in advance so you can then consume at will. All the rage in Europe they say. The way the world will spend in the future they say. Well I say fuck that.

This problem stems from modernized society’s obsession with information handling just for the sake of handling information. Now before you get thinking this is some kind of conspiracy theory, let me fill you in. This is not some kind of conspiracy. This is the ultimate conspiracy. This card along with countless other advances, in the field of convenience is one of the reasons why humans as a whole are becoming moronic, happy go lucky, text message me on my new 5 dollar a minute beeper celly, mini television toolbox, hand held combo, sacks of protein. This is not a new topic for me and as such I may ramble a bit here but just hang tight.

Now this card promises to revolutionize spending money and all that sort of shit. This makes no sense to me as it seems that the average person who is already fucked over from their spending habits, does not need to able to spend with greater ease. In the recent past Canadians saved on average ten percent of their cash. This figure now hovers just below three percent. This is pretty weak as it means that most people are two to three paychecks away from gluing smokes together downtown. Ok so back to the smart card. Why does a retailer need to be able to get a shit load of personal info about me. Yes this card could improve consumer protection and provide crucial medical info in times of need. It will also make it way easier for money grubbing capitalists to acquire my vital stats. They will then sell that info ala Blockbuster, to every fucking CD mail-order place known to man, the book of the month club and I’m sure the phone company would start phoning ten times more after they analyze my spending trends just a little more.

So just to solidify my position as a burgeoning Luddite foot soldier, I will now offer up the solution to this disturbing trend. Next time you get paid, take a stack of bills, rent Carlito’s Way, buy yourself a money clip and insert your cash money into the clip with the fiver facing out, and your strapped. Seniors everywhere are on this program and I’m now convinced that it is the way to go. I mean just the service charges from a debit card alone will kick your ass to the curb if you’re not careful. This whole cashless society scenario is really starting to chafe me. Yes it seems to have worked on Star Trek but that’s on TV. People don’t seem to mind that by existing and operating in a virtual financial world that we are making financial institutions so fucking wealthy that it defies logic. They bankroll the commercial sector which employs you, thereby enabling you to earn and then consume. During this cycle the bank is clocking some serious ducats by lending out what’s left of your paycheck.

This qualifies as a badass conspiracy due to the fact that we as a society embrace any form of easier spending and convenient type shit. Meanwhile the information handling, dollar acquiring, faceless juggernauts of the world just get more power over our lives. They dictate to us what we should strive for. Imagine… you’ve just bought your new SUV… your in the scenic mountains(in an area which no SUV would ever get to)… your new car is so dope even the animals can’t believe how easy it was to finance. I mean holy fuck, is that all we are good for these days is earning money so we can then spend it and earn some more and then spend it. Money tells us how to dress, how to socialize, how to live, where to work and even how to act. In short we have given money way too much power.

This is a bullshit scenario. Next time you’re about to buy a new instamatic fuckin’ widget master 9000 that you’ll get thousands of air miles for and that you won’t have to pay a cent on until 3020, think of how nice it would feel to know that you didn’t owe anybody shit. Think of how liberating it would be to know that you were not being spoon fed instructions by your television. Imagine how kick ass it would be to proceed to a library and pay CASH for that fucked up card and then borrow a book of all things and then read it in front of your television while that piece of shit was unplugged. I smell the crusty old pages already.

Gone to the yard to bury money in a tin can

unlearn