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

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

thehub.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 849 posts

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

#61

Post by quadrangle »

forty wrote: post #36
walterbell wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Paying taxes in cash is almost the most important core thing. It's utter violation of basic concepts of fiat currency for that not to be possible. The whole point of cash is that it is legal tender, and it has to be acceptable for taxes. Any country that violates this is really denying the basic concept of cash.

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

#62

Post by jaredandrews »

jakobdabo wrote: post #13
throwaway22032 wrote: post #3

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…

Your last sentence sounds like civil forfeiture and I certainly think it should be outlawed.

As far as cashless society winning, I dunno, I'm definitely worried about that outcome, but it's straight up illegal in my state to not to accept cash in a retail establishment and a good number of bars I go to don't accept cards at all. I use cash all the time and I find it way more convenient than a credit or debit card. My wallet doesn't randomly prevent me from opening it at a grocery store I have been to a thousand times and stop me from paying for groceries.

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

#63

Post by munk-a »

neb_b wrote: post #19
jakobdabo wrote: post #13

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.

There was a burrito shop on my block that had a bitcoin pay terminal (well, they had a bitcoin atm like device to get cash at)... they've gone out of business and I haven't seen another one since - some POS terminals have bitcoin support I've heard, but I haven't seen one yet... Until I can buy a coffee with bitcoin at Tim's bitcoin is not a serious competitor to oppose the cashless society.

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

#64

Post by CPLX »

jakobdabo wrote: post #13
throwaway22032 wrote: post #3

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…

Just remember that a society without cash is one in which every single member of society requires the explicit permission of multiple unaccountable people they have never met each and every every time they seek food, shelter, or clothing.

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

#66

Post by throwaway22032 »

chowells wrote: post #59
throwaway22032 wrote: post #3

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…

Carrying cash is exactly how you lose it all to police corruption, sometimes called civil asset forfeiture. Cash is no answer without sufficient legal protections. And if you have sufficient legal protections, cash mostly just buys you inconvenience. The problem isn't businesses going cashless. The problem is leaving structural control over money to profit-seeking enterprises.

How precisely do the police seize the assets of tens of thousands of people simultaneously?

They can't. This is a completely different issue, one which doesn't go away if cash isn't involved. The police could just as easily decide to seize your car or your watch or your computer or the clothes off of your back. On a one-by-one basis.

It's mass surveillance vs. targeted all over again.

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

#68

Post by Hnrobert42 »

chowells wrote: post #59
throwaway22032 wrote: post #3

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…

Carrying cash is exactly how you lose it all to police corruption, sometimes called civil asset forfeiture. Cash is no answer without sufficient legal protections. And if you have sufficient legal protections, cash mostly just buys you inconvenience. The problem isn't businesses going cashless. The problem is leaving structural control over money to profit-seeking enterprises.

That is highly unlikely and worth the risk. Also, GP isn’t advocating keep all your money in cash. Just for paying cash where you can.

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

#69

Post by tengbretson »

neb_b wrote: post #19
jakobdabo wrote: post #13

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.

What makes Bitcoin any more resilient in this scenario?

Govt mandates businesses carry insurance, insurance company releases list of Bitcoin wallets that their patrons are forbidden to have interacted with. Done.

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

#70

Post by ummonk »

What happens when it's not the government doing it? What happens when Facebook's algorithms decide to cut you off from your friends? Or when Google decides to cut you off from your emails and cloud storage? When payment processors decide to kick your business off their network?
Post reply on HN