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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

#701

Post by 6510 »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #672
sofixa wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there much evidence to believe governments won't cheerfully throw their citizens under the bus for the benefit of the surveillance state Is there much evidence for the reverse? Ignore the US Patriot act bullshit and focus on democratic countries where the political system isn't fundamentally broken.

This isn't a US-specific problem, a lot of Europe and the Anglophone world at large is experiencing issues like this. It feels like the last two years especially (but a fair bit leading up to it) have utterly destroyed my trust in not just the political institutions in the UK but a lot of other ones I'd taken for granted in the past too. I genuinely feel like we've become perhaps not a banana republic but certainly a…

Firstly, imho the UK reduced it self from a global empire to just the one island though this political funny business. You'd think someone in the right spot would eventually have enough of it.

I like your election formula. My ideas was to allow people to change their vote whenever they like. Crappy decisions would have to be paid for in votes immediately. Ideally after one truly bad move you are out the next day and the bad move is immediately reverted.

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

#702

Post by raxxorrax »

Findecanor wrote: post #227
MomoXenosaga wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No COVID was the last push. Germs and all that.

The danger from being infected from germs or viruses through cash is highly overrated. Studies have shown that among bank notes, microorganisms can survive for a significant time only on bank notes made of polymer. Most bank notes in the world, including US dollar bills, are made of cotton, linen or a blend of the two whereon microorganisms tend to dry out more quickly. Copper is antimicrobial, and that includes "gol…

The antimicrobial effect doesn't work if the coin isn't freshly polished. Be that as it may, money is just as much a disease vector as anything multiple people touch. Risk of life and all that...

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

#703

Post by raxxorrax »

aftbit wrote: post #282

Some seriously questionable decisions have been made by executive branches in the last few years. Just to name one other that sticks out to me, though less severe, IMO the mayor of LA should not be able to unilaterally order utilities to turn off water and power to peoples' houses.[1] 1: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

At least he should have a little ounce of decency and step down after such measures. We should also attach that to any emergency power in my opinion.

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

#704

Post by walterbell »

raxxorrax wrote: post #671
peterbraden wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me sad, you are so confident that a government can never do the right thing, that the only solution you see is to prevent any progress, and anchor yourself to a local minima from the past. Society needs it’s members to believe that they can improve it, that they are represented by a government, and that they can influence it’s path. Anything less is an authoritarian regime. Such deep seated cynicism shows…

> Such deep seated cynicism shows that we are far down a bad path. It isn't just confirmation bias. We had instances where a government blocked bank accounts of protesters, in democracies and autocracies alike. It doesn't get much clearer than that. We also had at least two decades where we only ever saw increased surveillance. And it isn't necessarily cynicism in my opinion, it is realism. It is an fearful older gen…

> endure it for quite a few years at least

Or longer, if life extension research is successful..

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

#705

Post by defaultname »

busymom0 wrote: post #679
defaultname wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a single charter right has been overridden. Every act undertaken under the EA is on the official record (available to the opposition parties). Parliament can revoke or partially revoke any component of the EA at any juncture. Then it has a followup discussion/analysis phase built in. Let's be clear -- there is no silencing component to this act. If someone has unfairly seen their accounts frozen, do a tell-all sa…

Quoted post unavailable.

> Nobody called the EA when BLM was destroying businesses

You've mentioned BLM multiple times. BLM protests in Canada were a momentary point event and the total sum of damage was minuscule (not the "billions" you claimed in another post). Why would the EA or SoE be called for a momentary event? One that isn't making promises about not leaving. Of "holding the line". Sorry, your own rhetoric and bombast got used against you.

A single day of the Windsor bridge blockade eclipsed that total in damages by magnitudes. As did a single day of the Ottawa insurrection. They might not have been breaking windows, but the damage was enormous. The cost to businesses, in policing, and to commerce was enormous. Now add that the convoy and its supporters were openly advocating terroristic threats against service providers that cooperate with the police (e.g. towing companies), which it should be noted is itself an incredibly serious crime, but that just got normalized.

> Or this tweet by the Ottawa Police?

Are you referring to the sadly pathetic lawyer basically police-car-chasing for clients to grift? Because you know the Ottawa Police tweet was spot on. Just as they gave plenty of warnings. And just to be clear, it is critically important that defense lawyers and civil liberty groups push the government and fight for every right, but citing this guy and his obvious grift, or his pander-to-the-crowd "but you can't do that!!!" routine, is not convincing.

As a protip, when you put dozens of links -- most of them completely unconvincing nonsense -- in your posts, it just looks crazy. It doesn't make your point.

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

#706

Post by auggierose »

maccard wrote: post #697
auggierose wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Card reader acting up is very different from your bank account being frozen for weeks.

Agreed, however it's also an experience that almost everyone has had, and the straightforward solution (carry two cards from two different banks) _also_ tends to resolve the issue of your bank account being frozen.

I've never had that experience, and it is a bit ridiculous of you to claim that. I am sure if everyone had that experience, cashless wouldn't be so popular. Did you have that experience to be locked out of your bank account for weeks?

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

#707

Post by matheusmoreira »

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…

We shouldn't have to reject a major improvement in our quality of life because of abusive governments and their surveillance. What we need is technology that makes their abuse impossible.

This is why cryptocurrencies were invented in the first place. They were supposed to emancipate us by providing private and anonymous digital cash that's free from government and bank control. Most of them failed at actually protecting us from anything but there are projects out there that are still trying, such as Monero. We should support these technologies instead of trying to turn back the clock.

We need to reject them instead. Just start using cryptocurrency for everything and cut them out.

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

#708

Post by raxxorrax »

agentultra wrote: post #401

As 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…

This is the reality of globalism, which you have to accept.

Of course it was an executive overreach. I have seen no evidence of violence and non-disruptive protests do not get results.

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

#709

Post by inter_netuser »

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…

They'll just pressure businesses into not accepting cash.

That pressure is already there in many subtle ways.

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

#710

Post by throwaway22032 »

decafninja wrote: post #414
throwaway22032 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. I don't really have a reply for this because we just obviously have really different worldviews so it's not going to really work. There is no consumer, or merchant, or hiding of transactions, or taxes, or Venmo, or Paypal, or any of this stuff. I'm standing next to you and you have an apple. I give you $1 for apple. I don't care about any of that other shit, it's like this whole invented set of problems that you…

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.

You don't seem to see the difference in language that you're subtly slipping in without realising. It's like a form of newspeak.

"Accepting" credit card payments or bank transfers is meaningful. Accepting cash is not.

Anyone can by default accept cash. There is no-one who cannot accept cash. You don't even need to have like, hands to count it with, I can put it in your pocket.

In order to "not accept" cash you have to intentionally make the choice to be an arse and decline it.

By contrast digital stuff is this whole web of "need an account, need an app, need a terminal, need this, ...". It's not automatic.

It's like the difference between walking and having a car.

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