“When the Spaniards were besieging Leyden in 1574, leather money was issued, but as hardship increased the population boiled and ate the new currency.”

   - Marshall Mcluhan in Understanding Media

Its not the economy stupid.

That's the problem with the political paradigm

we've been convinced that it is about economics

So we've focused on that to the ignoring of what is truly important.

Christy Clark's British Columbia

De Quincey was right...

Imo Rick Deckard is a tinny western twang way of saying Rene Descartes. 

Rene Descartes wrote "Man or Machine?" in which he posited that humans were simply machines, the same applying to animals.

So imo PKD's joke is that Rick Deckard is Rene Descartes trying to figure out if humans (or in some cases animals) are machines or not. Even further irony is that he uses a machine: the Voigt Kampff test to do so.

Another hint is that both Deckard and his wife have to plug themselves into a machine for their daily emotions. 

Update:  The name Rick is another form of Dick.  So Rick Deckard can be seen as Dick Descartes.

Philip K. Dick who like Descartes searches as to whether humans are machines.

Happy Coca-Cola Ramadan

 “Imperialism is Civilization Unadulterated.”

- Spengler, Oswald – The Decline of the West.