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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

#421

Post by noitpmeder »

caylus wrote: post #419
tshaddox wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anything this reinforces the author's point about the dangers of lack of transparency of "digital jail". How do we know that statement is true? If a crucial part of your argument is the epistemological claim that we obviously can't trust anyone who presents evidence or arguments that we don't like because they could be lying , then there's clearly no way of having a reasoned discussion.

My claim is that when evaluating when an authority's actions were reasonable, we should lend little to no credence to statements by that same authority claiming the actions were reasonable, especially when it is impossible to verify even who exactly was targeted, let alone why. As a contrasting case, if a police department arrested some people during a protest and released a statement about why, a journalist could ve…

But that's not what happened? The authority did not come out and say "we did this and we were right to do so!", they came out and said "this did not happen".

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

#422

Post by thfuran »

walterbell wrote: post #107
stickfigure wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Unless it actually ends up costing the merchant more money because they need to store and transport large amounts of cash and doing that isn't free.

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

#423

Post by mardifoufs »

Nursie wrote: post #337
mardifoufs wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suspending basic rights, the constitution, and due process without consequences over a protest is what's damaging to civil society. I'm genuinely baffled by how you can see protests as damaging to civil society but reacting to them by suspending the charter and using an act that has only been used in wars and armed insurrection before is perfectly healthy for our system. When has that ever happened in the western wor…

> I'm genuinely baffled by how you can see protests as damaging to civil society Protests that shut down cities and piss off residents for days/weeks at a time can be, particularly when the protestors break a ton of laws, urinate on the memorial to the unknown soldier, and the police aren't interested in fixing any of that. > suspending the charter and using an act that has only been used in wars The act has never be…

The current act is literally the replacement to the War Measures act... and of course it has never been used before since it was only created during the Mulroney era partly because Pierre Eliott Trudeau abused the original one during the October crisis. Kind of a pattern here.

So yes technically it's not the war measures act anymore but if let's say there was a war, they'd enact the same emergency measures law. There is no seperate law for war iirc but at least we get to say that we technically aren't under martial law (because we renamed it)

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

#424

Post by shagie »

abledon wrote: post #340
kragen wrote: post #119

Another day, another answer to "What is Bitcoin good for?" Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30435383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30408611

loving Hightowers recent foray into BTC on twitter [1] [1] https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower/status/14962234722087403...

There's a question to be asked...

From Dan of The Line Goes Up on The Financial Diet - https://youtu.be/8St36RjHd2E?t=757

(please pardon the wall of text transcription)

> But the why are crypto and NFTs bad? It's like they're socially destructive and they represent crypto. I really want to stress that NFTs are an extension of crypto and crypto is a socially destructive experiment that goes to great lengths to concentrate even more wealth and even more power into the hands of the few. They're deflationary by design, which traps -- so the long-term outcome of these would be that late comers, which -- you have to consider that, oh, well, what does a late adopter look like in crypto? And it's like well, if we're talking on a timeline, its people who are kids right now. So let's imagine this hypothetical future where where crypto becomes like mainstream. Let's say it wins and it takes over. Well, it's like, oh, well, you should have bought in early. It's like, well I couldn't buy in early. I was five. I now have to buy in late because the passage of time dictates it. And it's like, Ok, how is it going to behave when those people have to buy in? And it's like, oh, not good, not well. It's going to be terrible. And deflationary economies trap ordinary people into irrecoverable cycles of debt that just leads towards serfdom.

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

#425

Post by thfuran »

decafninja wrote: post #377
leppr wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 evasi…

The only thing they could mean is tax evasion. Otherwise the built-in transaction history make credit cards far, far more convenient than cash for record keeping.

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

#427

Post by pkd »

busymom0 wrote: post #403
staticman2 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well having googled that quote and found nothing by a normal news site I'm not clear why anyone would think the Twitter account you linked to is anything other than pure fiction.

It's a video. Unless you claim the video is somehow deep faked, his words corroborate what the comment says. And if you don't want to trust that, then here's direct link to CTVNews where he says those words at 3:26 mark: https://youtu.be/Qisd2juHvps?t=206

If you listen to the next question, it seems like he was talking about people in the U.S. donating to the movement.

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

#428

Post by wrycoder »

bch wrote: post #60
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 in several U.S. cities (including NYC & SF) which passed laws to mandate acceptance of cash. I presume this[0] is that story... If i understand correctly, federal law also requires cash to be accepted to repay a debt, which perhaps interesting to some, usually includes restaurants; you eat your meal, and incur a debt doing so. Perhaps with takeout they could refuse to hand over t…

I’ve been in DMVs (dept. of motor vehicles - a government office) that don’t accept cash. Check or charge only.

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

#429

Post by JamisonM »

daenz wrote: post #367
JamisonM wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK, he said the scope is a donation of over $100,000 - so probably zero people should be worried?

I took it to mean if the "movement" (of which you are a member) is donating that much money, but I can see your interpretation as well. It's ambiguous, which is not a good look for an official on such an important topic.

Reasonable people can disagree but I do see what you mean - I thank you for your honest consideration of my opinion, a rare treat!

Subsequent statements and clarifications have made it clear that these donors were not subject to any action, this freaking government.. they just can't quite figure out how to make a clear statement about anything, despite seeming like they are constantly reading talking points - it drives me up the wall.

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