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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

#611

Post by 0xy »

Bud wrote: post #362

Ok, fine, perhaps we need to take Trudeau's measures more seriously, and the ramifications of his measures, but guess what else we need to take seriously? The current threat of Trump-inspired fascism worldwide. Of which the "protests" in Canada are but one facet.

Fascists and dictators alike have used banks as weapons against classes of people they disagree with. [1] [2] [3] It seems you are okay with these methods as long as they're used on your political opponents.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsbank#Nazi_period

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Finance_(Soviet_Un...

[3] http://www.commartrecovery.org/docs/EnglishAnselmiReport.pdf

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

#612

Post by verisimi »

Its being forced though - its partly choice, partly lack of choice (forced).

In my area there are shops that do not accept cash. How is that even legal?!

Also, supermarkets have automated tills that only take cards. They also have ones that take cash - they all used to take cash - but the ratio is definitely swinging to card.

Not to mention all the ATMs that are disappearing.

So, this is a form of coercion.

If you put all that together with a govcoin, the scene is set for tracking of everything.

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

#613

Post by smcl »

malka wrote: post #576
i_like_waiting wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

afaik its complicated to create bank account in country where you don't live no? I always had to provide proof of address or something, from that country, which is complicated if you are not millionaire with property here and there.

In the UE it is quite easy

Where is that? Typo for UAE?

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

#614

Post by antientropic »

upsidesinclude wrote: post #545
Supermancho wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't have limited rights. You need to work on understanding that rights are not granted. That's a definition you accept, which is not a useful definition to me. There are rights that are not inherent and sometimes the legal and moral mix. eg I don't have the right to take an organ from a human who has not yet suffered systemic death, unless they have gone through a process that includes giving consent to that p…

False and here's why: There are rights which are fundamental. Saying "definition", as if it is a flexible description does not satisfy the reality. These rights are defined by the fact that they are inherent. Your example is a perfectly described granted right. You have been granted the right to something which is not yours and you have no other right to take. The distinction is important. There is no moral hazard no…

There is no such thing as an inherent right. Rights are a legal construct. They don't grow on trees and are not laws of physics. There are rights that I may believe should be universal, yet very clearly are not.

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

#615

Post by dijonman2 »

loceng wrote: post #596
zivkovicp wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably good advice, just remember that crypto is also digital and totally transparent (mostly). If you obtain your crypto via an exchange, then your wallet can be positively linked to your physical person, and (eventually) prohibiting transactions by blacklisting wallets would be trivial. :( I imagine that is a ways off still because crypto is not _that_ mainstream, but I suspect the time to get started and…

Once there are laws in place to force a check at a central service for blocked funds, certainly very easy them. We must fix and strengthen our governments - there's no way around that.

I’m confused. Shouldn’t we weaken our governments ability to freeze an account without due process?

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

#616

Post by Shadonototra »

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

> I'll take inconvenience over slavery any day of the week.

your "inconvenience" is the result of modern slavery

you get to not have to work hard because some other poor kid will produce everything you need, he won't get to have your "inconvenience"

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

#617

Post by smcl »

Nursie wrote: post #328
throwaway22032 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shrug. I guess my note book is less "convenient" than notepad.exe. More moving parts. We're just not on the same page here, sorry, I don't get it at all. It's like, are we counting the waves of the hands or what? I'm literally here now and I've just pressed about 300 buttons to write this message, are movements rationed?

If you're going to argue that one thing is easier than another, then yes, counting movements and time is part of that. "That'll be $15.77" Option 1: I look in my wallet and find a ten and a five, put my hand in my pocket and grab a few coins, hand those over. The cashier takes the cash, taps a number into the till, finds the right change and hands it back. Is it arduous, hard labour and the end of the world? No of co…

It's kinda funny, it used to be that "can I pay by card?" caused cashiers here to sigh and get a little annoyed by having to process a card payment. Some scolded me that I should've told them sooner (though exactly when was never clear to me). Presumably their POS systems were geared towards cash payments and card payments were bolted on as an afterthought.

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

#618

Post by walterbell »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #605
walterbell wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t sustain cash as a form of payment if only a tiny fringe care enough to use it. This is a prediction, not a historical fact. It is repeated in multiple comments on this HN article. Yet the Federal Reserve reports that U.S. currency in circulation has been steadily rising for decades, including the recent smartphone decade: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CURRCIR

interesting, although I expect this is not the case in all Western countries, and perhaps even less in some parts of the third world, I'm pretty sure Sweden and Denmark have less currency in circulation.

Would be good to quantify the cash decline, if any, outside the US.

Like others, I incorrectly assumed US was using less cash.

Cash is winning in the world reserve currency, and the cashless doth protest..

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

#619

Post by darawk »

pshc wrote: post #286
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…

This reminds me of all the posts on HN about running your own email server. Admirable but ultimately negligible. Cryptocurrencies will provide solutions that actually scale to these problems in time, but HN’s still not ready to hear it.

Unfortunately events like the ones we've just had are what's necessary to demonstrate to people that no, we actually do need technology like this.

Cashless is going to happen. The convenience gain is too large for it not to. Cryptocurrency is the only way to preserve any semblance of genuine sovereignty in a cashless world. It is a technological necessity.

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

#620

Post by oarsinsync »

bobthepanda wrote: post #346
Supermancho wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until people discover that the next place they wave their watch I'm not sure this has ever caused a reversal. There is a minority who speaks out, which sometimes gets traction enough to cause some sort of change, but the majority take the path of least resistance.

it kind of depends. there have been big pushes against red light cameras and similar automated license-plate enforcement in the US. which is actually kind of a wash, when you consider the alternative is often the unequal manual policing instead. in an older version of this, I know some places had and then removed the ability of tollbooths to cut speeding tickets. (It's pretty trivial to establish speeding if you get…

> in an older version of this, I know some places had and then removed the ability of tollbooths to cut speeding tickets. (It's pretty trivial to establish speeding if you get between two tollbooths faster than the speed limit would otherwise allow.)

Some countries took the opposite approach, and introduced lay-bys just before toll booths, enabling drivers to speed to their heart's content, and then have a rest before going through the next toll booth.

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