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In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously
501–510 of 849 posts
Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously
#502Earlier 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…
> 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. In classic HN fashion, everyone disagreeing with this is focused on their own solipsistic perception of the relative merits, technical and otherwise, of cash versus electronic payments. But convenience always wins. The not-yet-evenly-distributed future is represented by App…
You mean contactless payment which has been available outside the USA for over a decade, including Android wallet from 2011? Yes the future is unevenly distributed, but when it comes to banking and other payment infrastructure the "developed" country where it is least present is the USA
Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously
#503Come on, this is a partisan hit piece. Which is too bad because it's a legitimate and serious issue, but any pretense of objectivity went out the door when we get to "Howard Anglin... was previously Deputy Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Principal Secretary to the Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney" Call me when he starts going after long-standing issues like civil forfeiture: https://www.cbc.ca/news/c…
completely agree.
as if cash can't be seized.
"For most of history, we have thought about deprivation of liberty in quite literal terms. Short of execution, which Canada hasn’t done in 60 years, locking someone up has been the ultimate state sanction."
To open with such a statement is, frankly, ridiculous coming from anyone in Canada in this day and age. No mention of the genocidal tendencies towards the indigenous populations? No? Jail is clearly the worst thing that can happen to anyone.
Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously
#504As for whether the Emergencies Act is over-reaching, I disagree. We're not talking about a lawful protest here. We're talking about a well-funded occupation of public lands with an indefinite duration to the demonstration. Where those funds came from is going to be really interesting to the courts, as we've seen in the bail hearings today, because if they came from foreign powers with the intent to disrupt economic o…
to add...largely funded by foreign actors
But hey no one wants to let the complexities of reality get in the way of good story of assholes playing the victim card.
Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 th…
>Police have not confirmed any link between their investigation into this incident and the ongoing convoy protest.
I invariably see some version of this post every single time somebody posts about the attempted arson.
Are you of the opinion that in order for something to be true that it has to be publicly confirmed by police? Do you consider the statement that you posted to be positive proof that the arsonists are _definitely not_ involved with the silly trucker tantrum?
Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair enough. I acknowledge people have different viewpoints on this issue. Believe it or not, my wife is actually a proponent of cash transactions. She has not been able to convince me of the benefits either. We've agreed to disagree. She carries the cash, and to my benefit she spots me whenever we encounter a merchant that doesn't accept credit cards since I don't carry cash.
> She has not been able to convince me of the benefits either. … > She carries the cash, and to my benefit she spots me whenever we encounter a merchant that doesn't accept credit cards since I don't carry cash. I’m having trouble understanding these sentences written together in such short succession. Are you being serious?
Not sure what you mean, but yes I'm serious.
I rarely if ever carry cash. Nearly every transaction I make is via credit card. The only time I'll usually have cash is when traveling overseas (for emergencies, in the foreign currency, not USD). I find cash terribly inconvenient and annoying to use.
Meanwhile my wife loves using cash. I don't understand it. It's not for any privacy or idealogical reason - she says she just likes the old fashioned feel of handling physical money. She doesn't understand my dislike of using cash. As I said, we've agreed to disagree.
Every now and then when we're out together we'll encounter the rare merchant that doesn't accept credit card. Then she'll spot me with her cash. Otherwise we'll typically use our joint credit card. When she is out by herself she's much more likely to use the cash she always carries.
Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is utterly amazing to me that despite all of human history being filled with stories of egregious human rights violations, lies, and propaganda coming from governments all across the political spectrum and world that people still trot out the "look, read this official information. This is proof!" excuse. How many more examples do we need before the opposite is assumed?
I feel like if this actually happened to any one of the protestors, that person would be all over social media publicizing this. So far, to my knowledge, that has not happened.
Unless of course they were banned for spreading false or misleading information.
Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously
#508Young people may have never experienced actual freedom and privacy. Here goes. I grew up in the 80s, in Europe. The only thing the government knew of me was that I existed and which school I attended, and absolutely nothing else. There were no recording devices anywhere. My actions, my communication, my spending, all private. I was still a kid though. My dad worked and got cash in hand. It was also common to obscure…
> If you believe this is warranted, flip the script and apply this arbitrary power to a protest that you do agree with. Say a right-wing government is in power, and there's new BLM protests. Would you be OK with the government tracking every protesters, arbitrarily requesting private data from private businesses you interacted with, and then financially wipe you out without any process at all?
Like this: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-us... ?
Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Modern point of sale systems generate a transaction history for accounting, including cash transactions.
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Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously
#510The 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.
But you can't as long as the cashless society is forced upon you. At most you can try to take refuge on currencies which aren't controlled by governments like crypto. But since crypto is very volatile, it isn't a practical thing to do. You can try to buy precious metals or other things you can easily sell for cash if the need arises.
Too bad nobody invented a stable crypto currency meant to only facilitate trade as opposed to speculation.