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

#61

Post by excannuck » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

typenil wrote: post #58

excannuck wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 8…

Neither party values freedom or privacy. Who can I vote for who even pretends? I'm gay and largely agree with leftist ideals, but completely disagree with modern tactics by both parties. But the left controls technology, and so I criticize them more because there's more at stake. So I'm an identitarian for criticizing Silicon Valley for constantly engaging in that kind of discourse? Are you identitarian for assuming…

You don't vote for a party, you vote for an individual. Unless a party has some overarching values that you care about (say you have a strong opinion about abortion either way, and your local candidate is trustworthy on that issue).

Instead you focus on individual candidates. Nationally (if you're in the USA), guys like Rand Paul, or Ron Wyden have worked across the aisle on these issues.

You have to look at individual cases with care, even when they vote the same. Justin Amarsh appears to follow his conscience and voted against Trump in the impeachment and I respect him for his coherency. Romney also voted against Trump, but that was pure opportunism and the old very neo-connish GOP trying to wrestle control back from the "pacifist" wing of the GOP.

But what if both your candidates suck? Well, politics is local. Make sure you pay attention to the primary and refuse to back a neo-con/lib, be they Pelosi, Romney or whatever.

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

#62

Post by excannuck » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

kevinventullo wrote: post #37

excannuck wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 8…

Christian people are kept under a watchful eye in the US today? All 200 million of them?

What's your question? What's your point?

That mass surveillance doesn't exist and therefore the number of Christians are impractical to surveil?

Are you sure that the number is 200 million? Is that self-identified including "cultural" Christians who merely inherited a label?

Are you counting the person who got water sprinkled as a baby and never set foot in a Church?

Does your number lump the post-modern wing of Presbyterianism with Latin-mass Catholics?

If you know anything about Christianity you'd know that to reach 200 million you must be including all of the above. And, if you did lump them all together, then you don't really understand Christians.

Christians are quickly becoming the most discriminated class in America. By Christians I mean those coherent with Christian teaching. You might not like them, and you might agree with their persecution and so you might not like that the ennobled label of "victimhood" is rightly applied to them. But, nonetheless, Christians are increasingly under pressure in the West.

But, don't worry. There aren't that many of them. Certainly not 200 million.

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

#63

Post by toomuchtodo » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 3:15 AM UTC

gumby wrote: post #17

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.

Cash is easy for simple informal transactions (e.g. garage sales, farm stands and the like) and where connectivity is poor or nonexistent. A lot of the alternatives involve unnecessary infrastructure (e.g. PayPal etc have various controls to block money laundering, which isn't the purpose of your once-a-decade garage sale) or are siloed, making it hard to quickly do business with someone who has a different brand of…

The garage sales and farm stand we frequent takes Zelle and Venmo, respectively.