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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

#371

Post by drsnow »

Nursie wrote: post #342
raspyberr wrote: post #131

How are there so many comments that don't seem to understand you can have both. YOU can keep using cards for literally everything. Cash just need to exist and businesses should be forced to take it. That doesn't mean YOU have to use cash. YOU can live happily without it and use cards but the less well off should still have the right to use cash. But just because they may sometimes use cash that doesn't mean that YOU…

As a small business owner, why do I need to deal with the extra expense of taking cash? I need to hold a float, take security measures to protect it, take time to count up, take time to go to a physical bank to deposit, all sorts of extra costs in staffing or just plain time. And all for a fraction of a percentage of my customer base. It just doesn't make sense and I don't see why I should carry that burden.

It is a matter of principle.

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

#372

Post by bally0241 »

m348e912 wrote: post #176
CharlesW wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any dreams of Bitcoin replacing cash died years ago.

More specifically the dream of bitcoin replacing cash died in 2017 when changes were made to the protocol. Bitcoin became cost prohibitive to use for small transactions (less than several hundred dollars) and the addition of a feature called 'replace by fee' meant that small transactions weren't immediately reasonably trustworthy and you would have to wait for one or more confirmations on the blockchain.

Bitcoin is hardly cost prohibitive. When was the last time you sent a transaction? The last one I sent cleared at 2sats/byte and was <$1. Are you going to buy your coffee with it? No, probably not, but that hardly makes it a useless as currency replacement. Replace-by-fee doesn't make small transactions any less trustworthy either, since you should never trust any unconfirmed transaction (by definition, if its not on the blockchain its not yet a transaction). Furthermore, the lightning network blows away the competition in terms of cost per transaction, and while not perfectly trust-less (unlike the base layer) it has far less custodial risk than a bank or credit card account. If for example your counter-party goes rogue, at worst you just close the channel resulting in a rollback to the last settled balance state, minus an on-chain fee.

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

#374

Post by ta_abcd »

ripley12 wrote: post #194
mark_l_watson wrote: post #145

Excellent article and one that I wish my friends would read. Recently on a hike I mentioned how upsetting Trudeau’s actions are, and none of my friends had any idea what was happening up in Canada, except someone talked about a few things that I don’t believe are true: truckers were violent, few Canadians supported them, etc. - I think those things are not true. As other people here have pointed out, cashless society…

I think those things are true, and I live in Canada. I strongly support Trudeau's actions on this, and I'm sad that the government took so long to crack down on the "truckers". It's deeply damaging to civil society when a few extremists can shut down a city without consequences.

As a resident of the city in question, lets talk facts(whatever that means) if you care to read on..

Almost nothing was shut down as a result of this protest. You could travel over 99.5% of the city and forget a protest was taking place. Almost anything that was shut down, was shut down voluntarily.

Only the 3-4 blocks immediately adjacent to the Parliament buildings (where else do you go to protest your federal government's policies?) were partially blocked with parked vehicles (Mainly trucks, again very relevant to protesting a policy involving trucking.) This area is 90% + unoccupied government office space ( they work from home ). Almost all roads had at least one lane open for local traffic, and a route was cleared for members of parliament to be able to drive into work without obstruction.

A few residential side streets and a few high priced condo buildings were on the edge of this area. Those people did hear a lot of honking :( and perhaps had to see what people look like outside of their shiny city. I personally think that the important people in the high priced condos were a big reason why our local politicians were foaming at the mouth to wipe this group off the face of the planet.

The honking was mostly resolved by a court order to stop honking and after 2 weeks, the mayor actually talking to them to ask them to move; which they then did (pretty much).

While I had not been paying much attention, on Friday, my wife (muslim) who reads the news, was completely beside herself at the invasion of horrible violent people into the city and how minorities would have to go into hiding etc.. really total fear..

On Saturday, I took my wife and our kids to the protest to see this for ourselves (hard sell.) I was able to find parking without any issue or traffic about 10 minutes walk from parliament (there was space closer but blocked by police.) Once we got into the area near the parliament it was very loud and chaotic with the truck horns blasting (my kids enjoyed) and the smell of diesel fuel in the air (my wife did not enjoy.) But what we found were not angry people, but happy people. People made way for our stroller, help carry it up snowy stairs and thanked us for coming.

While I don't think my wife became a supporter, she certainly didn't have any further (irrational) fear of this group over the next 3 weeks, which we lived completely normally.

I'm not sure why it is so easy to hate people you have never met or care to meet, but it certainly not making this world a better place.

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

#375

Post by adolph »

catgary wrote: post #319
mark_l_watson wrote: post #145

Excellent article and one that I wish my friends would read. Recently on a hike I mentioned how upsetting Trudeau’s actions are, and none of my friends had any idea what was happening up in Canada, except someone talked about a few things that I don’t believe are true: truckers were violent, few Canadians supported them, etc. - I think those things are not true. As other people here have pointed out, cashless society…

No, poll after poll has shown that Canadians were overwhelmingly against the truckers [1], and a strong majority supported the use of the emergency act (there was even a point where bringing in the military polled quite strongly with Canadians). There have also been a multitude of reports of violence, including at least one case where protestors attempted to burn down an apartment complex with its residents locked in…

> at least one case where protestors attempted to burn down an apartment complex

On the footage, he described seeing two individuals lighting a fire in the lobby shortly after 5 a.m. Sunday. After the suspects leave, another individual is seen coming into view and quickly extinguishing the fire near the elevators, Munoz said.

...

Police have not confirmed any link between their investigation into this incident and the ongoing convoy protest.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-police-arson-in...

https://muckrack.com/matias-munoz

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

#376

Post by Terry_Roll »

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…

I had my only personal UK bank account frozen without warning for weeks. The first I knew of it was when the call centre wouldnt answer the phone for 45mins from the shop where I had just tried to use the card. Had to abandon the process and go home. Next morning, call the bank call centre, do security get told they cant talk to me. The processes to get the account activated was interesting, I couldnt complain to the govt ombudsman until I had exhausted the complaints process with the bank. Problem was the bank wouldnt talk to me, every time I called the call centre, passed security checks they would tell me they couldnt talk to me, so you are kept in a legal limbo of sorts. Govt ombudsman couldnt do anything until the 1st stage had been completed. So the rules are exploitable as most lawyers will also demonstrate in court.

So yes have some cash but behind the scenes data sharing does go on, it could be a simple conversation down the pub or a contract to process some data or provide a service.

Signwritten vans & trucks give the game away to neighbours as to whats going on.

Get some crypto where you can draw cash out of a machine, there are plenty of bitcoin machines and online crypto currency exchanges to move money around the world. When the Greek govt debt crisis kicked off, bitcoins spiked as people moved their money out of Greece, some events like this will also trigger a spike in crypto because its less bulky remembering a string than shipping tonnes of gold across borders.

The less reliant you become on any one entity the less any one entity can mess you up especially when you dont agree with their politics, methods or employer.

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

#377

Post by decafninja »

leppr wrote: post #357
decafninja wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay with my credit card even for In the case where they don't accept credit, and I can't be bothered to go make the purchase somewhere else, I'll just tell them to take the dollar bill and keep the change. Not having to deal with loose coins is worth it. How is carrying, paying with, and managing cash in your wallet more convenient than tapping a credit card or your phone?

To paraphrase the message you're replying to: The inconvenience of credit cards manifests itself after making the payment: when you're filling taxes, or when whatever information derived from your payments is used against you. You're trading immediate versus delayed inconvenience. At least that was the argument. I won't argue that most people will never feel these second order inconveniences.

Not sure I understand. Do you mean from the point of view of the merchant?

From the point of view of the consumer, I don't think I've ever done anything differently in regards to tax paperwork with regards to differences in method of payment.

Even from the merchant's point of view, I would imagine credit card payments are easier to keep track of for documenting purposes. Unless, of course, your intention is tax evasion, which I know quite a few merchants (including family) do with cash.

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

#378

Post by [deleted] »

conradev wrote: post #291
xanaxagoras wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of these scenarios can be addressed with a fungible cryptocurrency.

Yes, that is the argument I am making. But it is important that these fungible cryptocurrencies are as cash-like as possible. So, no global ledger.

[deleted]

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

#379

Post by JamisonM »

phil21 wrote: post #177
wvenable wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The banks contacted the government to seek advice on what to with these funds before the Emergency Act. They have these funds they know belong to multiple individuals, including the account holder, and don't know what to do with them. Just because 100,000 people dumped money into your account for cause doesn't mean it belongs to you personally. No individual protestors accounts have been frozen. If you donated to thi…

> Just because 100,000 people dumped money into your account for cause doesn't mean it belongs to you personally. This is the first time I've seen someone make this completely true point about the banking system. It's not right or just, but money in the bank is not your money. It is your bank's money, and they may or may not allow you to transact it at any given time. Your recourse's are few and extremely expensive.…

I think actually you will find in the normal course of life your recourse against a financial institution that freezes your funds in Canada are many and very affordable, even free.

It is a highly regulated sector, there is frequent reporting and quick reviews. In the specific case of the GoFundMe money TD Bank was immediately at the courts begging for someone to tell them what to do.

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

#380

Post by throwaway22032 »

thebean11 wrote: post #356
throwaway22032 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah because banks exist and can make digital transactions when you give them cash. Literally, if you were standing next to me, you can give me 10 quid and I can send someone else that ten quid. You have paid them ten quid using cash, reasonably anonymously in a way that cannot be easily blocked or censored as long as cash exists. This becomes far, far less convenient or feasible if we only have barter and now you nee…

So cash is convenient because you have the option to not use it, and use a digital payment instead? Really?

No, it's convenient because anyone can accept or transfer it without a middleman. It's a physical thing you just give to someone. You can't (reasonably) censor it or block it or sanction it without just disabling the whole currency.

I was just describing the fact that it's not some sort of crazy idea to pay bills using cash. If HN weren't full of 21 year olds we wouldn't even be having this chat, it's like these guys forgot that not even that long ago we just paid each other with envelopes at the end of the week/month.

Like, they're literally saying that you can't do X, where X is something that most of us did less than 50 years ago, and no we didn't spend half of our days running around.

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