With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future • Hacker News Board

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#21

Post by alkonaut » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

remirk wrote: post #4

camjohnson26 wrote: post #3

Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations? Transactions are slower than sending money electronically, the paper is subject to decay, and if your cash gets stolen you have no recourse to getting it back. The fact that a hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred real dollars is insanity and proof that its value is a speculative bubble that’s being driven by anarchist fanatics and criminals.

> Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations Buying groceries.

Even that is becoming more and more rare. The makeup of a 30-checkout supermarket here (Sweden) is probably 20 self-checkout, 5-no-cash manual ones and 5 that can handle cash.

Many if not all small businesses like hotdog vendors, flea markets etc have completely dropped cash because it's expensive and inconvenient.

Once the costs of cash management is higher than that of cards or digital transactions, there is no incentive.

It's easy to say "we need cash for privacy" but if people are doing better business without cash, it's hard to convince them.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#22

Post by proc0 » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #3

Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations? Transactions are slower than sending money electronically, the paper is subject to decay, and if your cash gets stolen you have no recourse to getting it back. The fact that a hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred real dollars is insanity and proof that its value is a speculative bubble that’s being driven by anarchist fanatics and criminals.

You've never traveled around and used cash because you are at a small shop of some kind with no ATM around? I guess you welcome the Great Reset then. I would rather keep the option, no matter how obsolete. Even crypto can have an equivalent, it's just more options, more flexible. Why would you want a more rigid system with less options? (unless you want absolute control)

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#23

Post by CapitalistCartr » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #3

Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations? Transactions are slower than sending money electronically, the paper is subject to decay, and if your cash gets stolen you have no recourse to getting it back. The fact that a hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred real dollars is insanity and proof that its value is a speculative bubble that’s being driven by anarchist fanatics and criminals.

Apparently the /s is actually required here.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#24

Post by grahamburger » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #3

Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations? Transactions are slower than sending money electronically, the paper is subject to decay, and if your cash gets stolen you have no recourse to getting it back. The fact that a hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred real dollars is insanity and proof that its value is a speculative bubble that’s being driven by anarchist fanatics and criminals.

Legitimately surprised at sibling comments missing the subtext here. s/cash/cryptocurrency of parent post and you have word for word the standard complaint against cryptocurrency, which I believe is the point @camjohnson26 is trying to make.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#25

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #18

camjohnson26 wrote: post #3

Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations? Transactions are slower than sending money electronically, the paper is subject to decay, and if your cash gets stolen you have no recourse to getting it back. The fact that a hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred real dollars is insanity and proof that its value is a speculative bubble that’s being driven by anarchist fanatics and criminals.

If you donate to political ideas that are unpopular a year later, a twitter mob of ideologues will destroy your career, à la Eich: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich

[deleted]

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#26

Post by glogla » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

grahamburger wrote: post #24

camjohnson26 wrote: post #3

Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations? Transactions are slower than sending money electronically, the paper is subject to decay, and if your cash gets stolen you have no recourse to getting it back. The fact that a hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred real dollars is insanity and proof that its value is a speculative bubble that’s being driven by anarchist fanatics and criminals.

Legitimately surprised at sibling comments missing the subtext here. s/cash/cryptocurrency of parent post and you have word for word the standard complaint against cryptocurrency, which I believe is the point @camjohnson26 is trying to make.

That's Poe's law then.

It doesn't help that we've all seen other / real (depending on whether GP is being sarcastic) authoritarians making exactly that argument I guess.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#27

Post by cowboysauce » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #19

cowboysauce wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations? I’ve gone camping and hiking in plenty of places that have no cellular service so cash is the only way to pay the fees. >The fact that a hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred real dollars is insanity and proof that its value is a speculative bubble that’s being driven by anarchist fanatics and criminals. Or, you know, because the government says…

How do you explain hyperinflation?

I'd explain it as being irrelevant to this particular conversation since credit/debit cards would also be affected by hyperinflation. Though you'd have the advantage of not having to push a wheelbarrow full of cash around.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#28

Post by blueprint » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #12

This is the real killer app of cryptocurrency. Monero is a decentralized, untraceable digital cash that preserves privacy. All the arguments against cryptocurrency can also be applied to cash, but that doesn’t take away their main value proposition, which is a mathematically secure way to send payments while protecting the sender’s privacy.

As a monero contributor, I can say one problem differentiating it still from the capabilities of cash is the inability to give Monero to someone who doesn't already have a wallet. there's trust involved in every solution we know of so far.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#29

Post by excannuck » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

_qcti wrote: post #2

As long as it's framed as a way to cut off immoral right wing extremists from the financial system, Silicon Valley will enthusiastically embrace dystopian government control of currency.

And 20 years ago, neo-cons embracing dystopian government control to make sure muslims didn't use cash.

It's all control. But instead of seeing it as right vs. left, its better framed as authoritarians (historic and modern left [1], Silicon Valley, FBI) vs. people who value their freedom and privacy either because its innate to their being, or because their particular group is kept under a watchful eye (gays in the 80s, muslims 20 years ago, christians people today).

Avoid getting ensnared in the identity trap the way you just did. Once you do, you've accepted the basic premise of identity politics and, therefore, things like CRT; which is just 's/class/identity/g' for Marxism.

[1] that is all of the left's history from the Jacobins until today minus twenty or thirty years centered around the early 90s.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#30

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

cowboysauce wrote: post #15

camjohnson26 wrote: post #3

Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations? Transactions are slower than sending money electronically, the paper is subject to decay, and if your cash gets stolen you have no recourse to getting it back. The fact that a hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred real dollars is insanity and proof that its value is a speculative bubble that’s being driven by anarchist fanatics and criminals.

>Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations? I’ve gone camping and hiking in plenty of places that have no cellular service so cash is the only way to pay the fees. >The fact that a hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred real dollars is insanity and proof that its value is a speculative bubble that’s being driven by anarchist fanatics and criminals. Or, you know, because the government says…

> I’ve gone camping and hiking in plenty of places that have no cellular service so cash is the only way to pay the fees.

This seems like more of a reason to push for rolling out wireless connectivity in places of natural beauty than to argue for keeping cash around. Last time I traveled Chilean Patagonia, I was impressed that even the most isolated communities now have 4G and the village general store has a card terminal. In Finnish Lapland, too, where there are almost no people, you almost never lose a mobile phone connection in the national parks, and the shops take cards like anywhere else in the country.