Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

which.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 136 posts

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#61

Post by toby »

sametmax wrote: post #47

Another problem is that no society is perfect. And even if it were, it won't stay that way. There is a need for a small grey area in any system to stay sane, where people can workaround the limitations of said system. Yes, it will be abused, and also used for nefarious purposes. But it's better than the alternative. You need people to sometimes be able to do things the state doesn't approve. You need children to be a…

Fantastic comment, this is to me the crux of what makes privacy so important.

"How could people have decided that marijuana should be legal, if nobody had ever used it? How could states decide that same sex marriage should be permitted, if nobody had ever seen or participated in a same sex relationship?"

https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#62

Post by dontbenebby »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #37
Retra wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do if you're not a legal EU resident, you will be unable to purchase food/lodging/transportation?

If you're not an EU resident, it's your own responsibility to have some valid means of payment from your home country. Which could also be cash you exchanged for the local currency, though if cash is all you have, some countries could prove difficult. Or you could find a local bank that will give you an account - they may of course do so even when not legally required. But to take an extreme case, there's nothing pre…

>But to take an extreme case, there's nothing preventing you from getting yourself into trouble due to a lack of valid payment methods. For example, Americans have visa-free access to the EU, so nobody will check their finances, and an American could theoretically land somewhere in the EU without a payment card and only carrying US dollars, which aren't legal tender.

I thought part of the job of immigration officers is to screen travelers for ability to sustain their trip? Visa waiver does not mean you are entitled to enter.

When I (an American) visited the UK and EU on a backpacking trips, the immigration official asked me how I'd cover my expenses, and specifically queried about backup plans if my card wasn't accepted. (This was back before chip and sig rolled out)

Though they did just take me at my word I had enough US dollars that I could convert them to pounds and get a room if needed...

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#63

Post by notamerican »

argd678 wrote: post #14
jstanley wrote: post #9

One of the problems with a cashless society is that the banks aren't required to give you a bank account. If none of the banks will give you a bank account, and there's no such thing as cash... then you're just not allowed to have money. That shouldn't be a position that it is possible to get into.

What’s the reason they wouldn’t give you an account? It seems like helping people get bank accounts would be what you’d want, though the IT issues arround outages and lack of network services in area is a hard one.

You can have issues opening an account in the UK if you're not allowed to get credit, since many bank accounts include free access to credit, or an overdraft facility, that you can't turn off or decline.

You can be banned from getting credit pretty easily too; if you've failed to pay council fines (parking, tax, etc.), or missed a repayment on a loan, a judge can give you a ban. It can be a real problem for people who get into a bad financial position and want/need a new bank account later on.

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#64

Post by firmgently »

iamgopal wrote: post #24

How we/society/constitution stopping government from just create arbitrary number on some server to create money out of the blue ?

Banks do it under fractional reserve banking.

"Lord Adair Turner, formerly the UK's chief financial regulator, said "Banks do not, as too many textbooks still suggest, take deposits of existing money from savers and lend it out to borrowers: they create credit and money ex nihilo* – extending a loan to the borrower and simultaneously crediting the borrower’s money account"." [0]

* hilarious use of Latin to make 'out of nothing' sound authoritative

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#65

Post by teddyh »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #41
bhaak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy the "how I almost became a millionaire because of Bitcoin" stories. I've read a lot of them online and I know surprisingly many people personally that have such a story to share. Those stories tell you a lot about the person in question. How it didn't work out and how they cope with that "loss". Yours is the first where someone coped out because not being satisfied with the kind of privacy Bitcoin provides.

Sometimes having principles and sticking to them puts me in unfavorable situations like that, but to be honest I still feel the same way about bitcoin. Because of missing out though I never really got back into the coin scene, but I do like monero/zcash for their privacy features, but I have a hard time buying the idea that any coin based off wasting compute cycles and energy on arbitrary math is going to be a real c…

What is your opinion of GNU Taler?

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#67

Post by nothrabannosir »

the8472 wrote: post #51
jstanley wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> banks cannot refuse basic accounts to legal EU residents (unless they believe you're laundering money or financing terror groups). This is little comfort if you're not a legal EU resident, or if they believe you're laundering money or financing terror groups (whether you actually are or not). As long as there are any caveats to "cannot refuse bank accounts to all people" then switching to a cashless society would c…

Not being a resident means you are the resident of a different country, so the assumption is that you have a bank account there. And being illegal or a suspected terror financer would already put you in an underclass anyway.

The problem is rarely the intention of a law, rather than the imperfections of its application.

Governments are quite imperfect, and humans are a varied bunch. There are exceptions to everything , and exceptions to that. The Windrush generation is just a recent example that comes to mind: luckily, they were numerous enough to get their story heard. But people fall through such cracks every single day. Sometimes an imperfection in the law, sometimes an “overzealous” public servant.

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#68

Post by simbadlemarin »

sametmax wrote: post #47

Another problem is that no society is perfect. And even if it were, it won't stay that way. There is a need for a small grey area in any system to stay sane, where people can workaround the limitations of said system. Yes, it will be abused, and also used for nefarious purposes. But it's better than the alternative. You need people to sometimes be able to do things the state doesn't approve. You need children to be a…

Very insightful comment.

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#69

Post by bolyarche »

theonemind wrote: post #57
the8472 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being a resident means you are the resident of a different country, so the assumption is that you have a bank account there. And being illegal or a suspected terror financer would already put you in an underclass anyway.

The assumption that everyone has a country causes problems for people who actually don't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness

I think statelessness is related to citizenship as opposed to residency. You can be a resident of a country wihout being a citizen.

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#70

Post by IshKebab »

awakeasleep wrote: post #11
cascom wrote: post #2

The implications of a cashless society on privacy are terrifying

The implications on life for the poor are terrifying! Businesses would love to be able to exclude people too poor to use their services from society- It's a real ugly situation. Like a decentralized apartheid based on financial status. Without the government stepping in and trying to prevent this discrimination, there is no one to stand up for these human being's lives

I don't see what any of that has to do with using cash vs using a prepaid debit card.

Are you thinking about credit checks to stop poor people getting phone contracts? Because that already happens and cash existing hasn't stopped it.

Post reply on HN