'Spun Candy' anyone?

[HerenIstarion]

It's much more interesting, because much more realistic, when there's a struggle between different goods

Another key-phrase from that lecture by Pullman. Denethor and his guards' loyalty, and dead key-warden come to mind, though.

To preserve anything is dangerous, & ultimately restrictive of humanity

I can't help recalling the story I've read some years back (though I can't remember the name of the author (nor the title of the story), as I did enjoy it at the time of reading - it was a short story of the man smuggling something trough the city at great personal risk. The story is placed at some future time when advertising and manufacturing companies are the same. The result is that not a product lasts more than couple of hours (be it clothing or furniture or vehicle). Social and economical structure is based on constant change, automata sell and sell things to people who are forced to constantly buy them. The nature of the thing protagonist is smuggling along is not revealed until the very end, but than the reader finds that it was not a weapon or bomb, but merely a stool (or maybe a chair) made of real wood.

It seems to me that Messers M. and P. do not like wood. They think it's too crude, greatly inferior to, say, plastic or something even more complex like kevlar...