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Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

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Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#61

Post by asah »

sparkie wrote: post #47
tjoff wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but unfortunately I don't believe a society being run by humans would ever implement that. The leaders will not tolerate that kind of loss of control.

It has already been implemented (Bitcoin, Monero etc), and is improving gradually. The control freaks who would not like to tolerate it think they'll be able to tame it, but Bitcoin is like the Hydra - it gets stronger with every unsuccessful attack attempt. It's better for them to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist in order to not bring attention to it. When they eventually lift their heads ou…

Serious q: one of the big arguments against untraceable transactions is organized crime. Yes they're very real.

But what if untraceable transactions were limited to small amounts and slow rates, such that you could personally provide for your family but not run an enterprise? (basically that's what physical cash attempts, and as long as the denominations are kept low, it sort of works)

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#62

Post by sparkie »

tjoff wrote: post #53
sparkie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has already been implemented (Bitcoin, Monero etc), and is improving gradually. The control freaks who would not like to tolerate it think they'll be able to tame it, but Bitcoin is like the Hydra - it gets stronger with every unsuccessful attack attempt. It's better for them to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist in order to not bring attention to it. When they eventually lift their heads ou…

Bitcoin is neither anonymous nor untraceable. Replacing cash with bitcoin would be a nightmare.

It's not there yet, but eventually Bitcoin will be near enough anonymous and untraceable via the use of the Lightning Network, sidechains, CT and mixing services. There's usually a cost/privacy tradeoff, and people will be able to choose their appropriate level of privacy.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#63

Post by unwind »

hannasanarion wrote: post #7

Why does there need to be a separate government issued digital currency? Presumably all of the private accounts that people are currently using are measured in Kr already, and the banks already operate at fractional reserve so the actual paper doesn't exist. As an American, I make about one cash purchase a year, but that doesn't mean that I'm not spending US Dollars. It seems to me that calling digital money "e-krona…

How many checks do you use (write or receive)?

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#64

Post by pishpash »

api wrote: post #38
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how services work though, you can't really be self sufficient unless you're a hunter gatherer. And even then you still need to be strong enough to kill the other tribes who are contesting with you for land. Imagine going to Mars and the very air you breathe is owned by your government. For me that's not an argument against going to mars, that's an argument for working harder to build a stronger, more trustwort…

No. Self sufficiency is a continuum, not a boolean. Cash decentralizes permission for economic transactions.

I'm genuinely curious, what would be the rationale or incentive for a private payment processor (in a competitive payments market) to reject a legitimate transaction? The only reason I can think of would be false positive on fraud detection or system error or the such, all problems with the medium, not with centralization/permissions.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#65

Post by michaelmrose »

pishpash wrote: post #35
intertextuality wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false comparison. Physical cash, in your possession, cannot be frozen or revoked unless those entities stop accepting government fiat currency. It has nothing to do with being self-sufficient.

I think the point is even with cash in your wallet it is already a society where you have to obtain permission from unknown people to "obtain food, water, shelter, or transportation" because all of these things are delivered to you after many rounds of market exchanges which require clearing houses, escrows, the Fed, SWIFT, etc. Society has been essentially cashless for ages.

Whats the bar for declaring foo illegal vs keeping foo from effectively keeping people from doing foo by making it impossible to pay for foo.

This would be abused in the US in very short order. How it works for the swedes should be interesting.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#66

Post by JamesBarney »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #27
CPLX wrote: post #14

A society without cash is a society in which every person has no choice but to get the permission of someone they don’t know and will never meet each and every time they seek to obtain food, water, shelter, or transportation, and that permission can be revoked instantly, silently, and invisibly at any time.

That's how services work though, you can't really be self sufficient unless you're a hunter gatherer. And even then you still need to be strong enough to kill the other tribes who are contesting with you for land. Imagine going to Mars and the very air you breathe is owned by your government. For me that's not an argument against going to mars, that's an argument for working harder to build a stronger, more trustwort…

The difference is there are thousands of places to go for food or shelter. But only a few to get a credit card.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#67

Post by intertextuality »

pishpash wrote: post #35
intertextuality wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false comparison. Physical cash, in your possession, cannot be frozen or revoked unless those entities stop accepting government fiat currency. It has nothing to do with being self-sufficient.

I think the point is even with cash in your wallet it is already a society where you have to obtain permission from unknown people to "obtain food, water, shelter, or transportation" because all of these things are delivered to you after many rounds of market exchanges which require clearing houses, escrows, the Fed, SWIFT, etc. Society has been essentially cashless for ages.

Then a cashless society requires permission from multiple entities- the government, the financial providers, and the entity you want to transact with.

Not at all like cash, which just requires the entity to accept it as legal tender.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#68

Post by scbrg »

pishpash wrote: post #57
kstenerud wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if your phone dies or is lost or stolen, how do you pay for food with no phone? How do you even buy a replacement phone if you have no phone to pay with?

If you lose your wallet how do you pay for food with no wallet? This is a false line of argument.

With the spare cash I have at home. I don't have a spare phone at home, with a spare SIM card.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#69

Post by sparkie »

asah wrote: post #61
sparkie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has already been implemented (Bitcoin, Monero etc), and is improving gradually. The control freaks who would not like to tolerate it think they'll be able to tame it, but Bitcoin is like the Hydra - it gets stronger with every unsuccessful attack attempt. It's better for them to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist in order to not bring attention to it. When they eventually lift their heads ou…

Serious q: one of the big arguments against untraceable transactions is organized crime. Yes they're very real. But what if untraceable transactions were limited to small amounts and slow rates, such that you could personally provide for your family but not run an enterprise? (basically that's what physical cash attempts, and as long as the denominations are kept low, it sort of works)

You can ask the questions about whether it should or should not enable crime, but the question is useless, because it doesn't address whether it can or cannot enable crime. When you ask this question, you come to the conclusion that it can enable crime.

So then you might argue that if it can enable crime, we must do something about it. Admirable ideas, but you then need to ask the question, can we do anything about it? When you ask this, you come to the conclusion that you can't do anything about it. Bitcoin happened. Nobody is in control. It does not care about your opinion.

So the real question we should be asking, is, if Bitcoin can enable crime, and we are unable to prevent the use of Bitcoin, how must our law enforcement adapt to this new world? Then we can stop wasting resources on hopelessly trying to adapt the world to suit law enforcement.

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