Live data from Hacker News

In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

thehub.ca

31–40 of 849 posts

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#31
I'm really happy to see that many people from many places on the political landscape see "debanking" as a line that should not be crossed.

A great point I overheard recently was that this precedent is likely to be used in Canada against indigenous peoples protesting resource extraction and other incursions onto their land. Now a blockade can be a "terrorist act," etc., and their finances can be frozen among other things. This power is not just going to be used against some wacky antivax truckers this one time and then forgotten about.

I dislike the term "financial deplatforming" quite a bit as it minimizes the severity of freezing someone's assets. This isn't like being kicked off a media platform. Having your assets frozen doesn't just deprive you of your livelihood but also prevents you from defending yourself since lawyers cost money. It's one step short of imprisonment.

It's also being done by the government. Get kicked off a private platform by the owners and you can just go elsewhere. That's not the case if the government is seizing your assets and also says its illegal for anyone else to do business with you.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#32

The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused. Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisel…

I agree in principle and I am against the disappearance of cash, but the convenience is also a factor and I end up never using cash. I think a cashless society wil happen in any case. With covid many shops didn't accept cash, I don't know how people who got locked out of the banking system dealt with that.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#33

The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused. Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisel…

I thought cashlessness without a trusted third party was a solved problem. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Satoshi called it digital cash actually for a reason, not cashlessness. It has similar properties to physical cash, as the ownership can't be taken away trivially.

The problem is that people are still waking up slowly. For me the Cyprus bail-in in 2013 was the wake-up call that I need full ownership of my assets.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#34
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. No, that battle is lost. Cashless is easier and more convenient, it's hard to beat that. We need more constitutional human rights. It's not okay to take or freeze somebody's money/property without any court decision. Edit: some of the answers assume that I'm against cash or that by saying "battle is lost" I mean cash is gone; My point of "cashless winning" is tha…

As long as bitcoin exists, the battle is not lost.

Bitcoin is useless to the vast majority of people as a cash substitute. If you want people to use your decentralized currency it needs to be an actual currency, which means 1. easy to transfer and 2. predictable store of value. Without monetary policy bitcoin will never accomplish 2. They're a very long way off from 1 too.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#35

The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused. Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisel…

100% agree with everything you said

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. No, that battle is lost. Cashless is easier and more convenient, it's hard to beat that. We need more constitutional human rights. It's not okay to take or freeze somebody's money/property without any court decision. Edit: some of the answers assume that I'm against cash or that by saying "battle is lost" I mean cash is gone; My point of "cashless winning" is tha…

> No, that battle is lost. Cashless is easier and more convenient. Incorrect, the battle is partly won in several U.S. cities (including NYC & SF) which passed laws to mandate acceptance of cash. However, cash-acceptance laws were mostly motivated by the unbanked, who are now being used to justify the introduction of nation-state CBDCs. China's CBDC is two-tier and preserves retail bank competition. People close to t…

Can you pay taxes in cash? I don't think it's possible in my country.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#37

The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused. Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisel…

> The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. No, that battle is lost. Cashless is easier and more convenient, it's hard to beat that. We need more constitutional human rights. It's not okay to take or freeze somebody's money/property without any court decision. Edit: some of the answers assume that I'm against cash or that by saying "battle is lost" I mean cash is gone; My point of "cashless winning" is tha…

> Cashless is easier and more convenient, it's hard to beat that.

Unfortunately you are probably right. The history of computing clearly shows that convenience beats absolutely everything including privacy, security, and autonomy. The most convenient option almost always wins regardless of any other factors.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#38

It sounds like the author lives somewhere upper class. I've never been to a business that can't take cash.

In the Netherlands it's not terribly uncommon. It used to be more the other direction in the UK but it has become more common to be card only here as well.

I'm not really sure where class comes into accepted forms of payment? But I'm also not sure what class you're talking about.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#39
Exactly correct.

Anyone who is applauding this, just imagine the opposite political party in power using this against you or organizations you support. This is why no one should have been happy when executive orders became the norm in the US and congress did nothing. This is how you lose a senate and gain a Caesar, and look what happen to Rome eventually…

Debanking someone who can now no longer pay for thier own defense is crazy overreach. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#40
post #32

The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused. Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisel…

I agree in principle and I am against the disappearance of cash, but the convenience is also a factor and I end up never using cash. I think a cashless society wil happen in any case. With covid many shops didn't accept cash, I don't know how people who got locked out of the banking system dealt with that.

If government allows for cashless society without safeguards it is criminal negligence. Any serious outage and we are crippled.
Post reply on HN