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

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

#101

Post by pdonis »

ddingus wrote: post #78
chowells wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We can fix that, and it is being addressed. Cash is a great answer to a whole lot of basic commerce, small scale, freedom style, between adults just adulting. The problem IS businesses refusing cash. The public really does not benefit and we have not shown we are able to avoid abusing electronics. One day maybe. Right now? Not a chance. Cash remains necessary and the costs are not crazy enough to warrant all the abus…

> The problem IS businesses refusing cash. The public really does not benefit

I benefit quite a lot from not having to use cash. I pay all my bills with credit cards. That means I can do it remotely, taking a few minutes a month, without having to leave my house. Having to pay each bill in person, in cash, would be a huge cost to me in time and effort. And if the companies I'm paying those bills to had to have the personnel and infrastructure to support all or most of their customers paying in person, in cash, the costs of the things I'm actually paying them for would go way up.

Sure, if you're going out for coffee and you'd rather pay with cash, it's a hassle if the coffee shop doesn't accept it. But that just means you go and find another coffee shop that does. That's a very different issue than the issue of cutting off people's access to non-cash methods of payment, which is what the article under discussion is talking about.

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

#102

Post by bko »

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.

If only there were a digital cash that you can self custody, easily verify and transfer.

In all seriousness, I think some form of cryptocurrency could serve this purpose and move us away from relying on banks that act on behalf of the state. Obviously there's a whole lot of baggage with the current cryptocurrencies out there today, but there's no reason we have to resort to carrying around pieces of paper or voting for the right people to ensure our assets and livelihood are outside of the reach of the state (at least without going through the proper legal channels).

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

#103

Post by throwaway22032 »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #74
throwaway22032 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is called war and it isn't the police doing it then, it is the military.

Sure, so then you've declared war.

Socratically, consider what would have happened if Trudeau would have had to send in the army to violently remove property from all of these people.

I'll submit that a different, far more reasonable solution would have been arrived at.

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

#104

Post by gruez »

walterbell wrote: post #22
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…

> 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…

>Incorrect, the battle is partly won in several U.S. cities (including NYC & SF) which passed laws to mandate acceptance of cash.

It'll be interesting to see how this battle gets affected by the trucker protests. Historically such bills seem to be largely supported from a social justice point of view[1] (ie. "we need to force businesses to accept cash because cash-only shops are exclusionary to marginalized people"). With the canadian government freezing the bank accounts of freedom convoy protesters, this push could be also associated with the (alt-)right as well. This could translate to a bipartisan push to get accepting cash enshrined into law, or a situation where cash/crypto becomes a right wing dogwhistle, eg. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/24/bitcoi...

[1] based on a unscientific analysis of this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/nyregion/nyc-cashless-ban...

The relevant sections were:

>because of financial circumstances, unwilling to for philosophical reasons or vulnerable to its darker aspects.

>“We are reining in the excesses of the digital economy.”

>But critics of cashless businesses say they discriminate against people who lack bank accounts and credit cards, while also raising the specter of hackers stealing personal data tied to digital transactions.

>Bronx households, the agency said, were around twice as likely not to have a bank account.

>“I worry about the real-world discriminatory effect that cashless business can have on New Yorkers, especially in communities of color,” Mr. Torres, a Bronx Democrat, said.

>“I think it’s incredibly discriminatory not to accept cash because some people can’t get credit,”

>“It is exclusionary,” she said, “because people without means are less likely to have a credit card.”

2 mentions of privacy/security, 6 mentions of social justice

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

#105

Post by selfhoster11 »

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.

Some developed societies don't actually make it legal to rob you as long as you wear a police uniform.

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

#106

Post by pdonis »

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.

> Can you pay taxes in cash?

Sure, if you're willing to schlep all the way to the nearest IRS office to you that has a human in it that will take your cash. Which might be hundreds of miles away.

There are good reasons why most people prefer not to pay most things in cash.

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

#107

Post by walterbell »

stickfigure wrote: post #89
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…

> Incorrect, the battle is partly won... Not in the slightest. You can mandate that people accept cash, but you can't force people to pay with it. The writing is on the wall; barring some sort of major social upheaval, cashless will be more dominant in the future. It's just too convenient. So let's figure out what kind of benign future we actually can build. "Everyone decides to use cash again" just isn't going to ha…

We don't need "everyone" to use cash for "everything", just some people to use cash for some transactions.

It is legal in most jurisdictions to give discounts when paying with cash. That is enough motivation to use cash for larger purchases, since it saves costs for both the merchant and the customer. The only loser is the now-redundant payment processor.

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

#108

Post by bugbuddy »

zdragnar wrote: post #75
bugbuddy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving is also easier and more convenient than walking but it would be absurd to suggest that everyone should have a car available for them to drive as a constitutional human rights. Another counter point is that cash is arguably easier and more convenient in some aspects for some people.

Nit: owning property is a constitutional right. Compelling someone else to provide it for you with the force of law is not.

I thought it would be obvious what I meant. I should have anticipated the lawyers in the audience here.

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

#109

Post by zdragnar »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #84
zdragnar wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nit: owning property is a constitutional right. Compelling someone else to provide it for you with the force of law is not.

Yeah, it's a driver's license that's a privilege not a right. Own all the cars you want. Create a car museum if that's your thing and you've got the funds. But behave if you want to actually legally drive any of them.

No license is required to operate a vehicle on private land... it is only on public roadways (which are public land) and public accomodations (privately owned parking lots that are publicly accessible) that a license is required.

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

#110

Post by SkyPuncher »

spicybright wrote: post #2

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

I've been finding more and more.

In fact, a local ski resort ($99 season pass - cheap type of place) only allows ordering via the Toast App. No credit. No cash. App only.

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