In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously • Hacker News Board

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

#711

Post by inter_netuser » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #707

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 protect…

It's not a technological problem.

They'll just pressure all businesses not to accept your crypto.

Just the airlines, banks, any payment processor, any gold bullion dealers, any supermarkets, any restaurants, any car rentals, any car dealers. Probably can be done in less than 10 lines of regulation. Nobody is going to risk jail for your crypto.

What then? You are going to invent some tech that will somehow make totalitarian government impossible?

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

#712

Post by inter_netuser » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

hkt wrote: post #555

Terry_Roll wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Credit unions are also good for this: they won't necessarly have the modern comforts of a bank, but your local one (if you have one) will do cash based accounts, in person. They still KYC but since they're not plugged in to swift etc they might work well as a backup plan in situations like yours.

They are plugged into SWIFT, if not directly, then whoever happens to be their backoffice provider, which is usually a large bank.

They are all subject to the same regs, and most credit unions aren't any better than large banks.

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

#713

Post by inter_netuser » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #22

jakobdabo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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…

well.

If money is speech, does it mean cash is protected by the 1A?

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

#714

Post by hluska » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 1:46 PM UTC

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…

In this case, the statement was backed up by an ADM in front of a parliamentary committee. If she lied, someone will be able to show proof of that. At minimum, it would end her career.

Why assume she lied until there is proof?

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

#715

Post by teddyh » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

ladallada wrote: post #538

I think the article brings good points, but I also think it ignores something important, the alternatives... You can agree or disagree as much as you want with the current situation, but at some point, there has to be ways for a society to enforce its laws. Ideally you want to be in a society that define laws collaboratively, where you have a say in them, with a vote for example, and where the laws are applied fairly…

> a lot more civil in my opinion.

Reminds me of this exchange in Office Space:

Bob 1: We can’t actually find a record of [Milton] being a current employee here.

Bob 2: I looked into it more deeply, and I found that apparently what happened is that he was laid off five years ago, and no one ever told him about it. But, through some kind of glitch in the payroll department he still gets a paycheck.

Bob 1: So we just went ahead and fixed the glitch.

Boss: So, Milton has been let go?

Bob 1: Well, just a second there professor, we fixed the glitch. So he won’t be receiving a pay check anymore, so it’ll just work itself out naturally.

Bob 2: We always like to avoid confrontation whenever possible. The problem is solved from your end.

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

#716

Post by BoxOfRain » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:00 PM UTC

6510 wrote: post #701

BoxOfRain wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 decline of the British Empire is definitely an interesting subject, especially as its territorial peak came relatively close to its precipitous decline. While I don't think the notion of being a former superpower really defines contemporary British politics in the way many outside commentators assume it does, the speed which that decline happened definitely had a marked effect on how our political history played out in the 20th century.

I quite like your proposal for elections too, although its implementation might be difficult when it comes to paper-based electoral systems! It would be interesting to see what effect it would have on the Overton Window, I suspect it would lead to policies becoming more incrementalist and less radical across the board. I would be concerned about it giving more de facto power to the press though.

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

#717

Post by thebean11 » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:02 PM UTC

throwaway22032 wrote: post #380

thebean11 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The point is that it’s a huge pain as evidenced by the fact that nobody does it now that there is an alternative..not that it’s literally impossible.

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

#718

Post by adolph » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:07 PM UTC

braingenious wrote: post #505

adolph wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 _d…

No, I assume the arsonists might be from any population, not excluding the truckers. I think the facts of the matter don't support the claim that "protestors attempted to burn down an apartment complex."

Looking at the photos of the arsonists, I see one is ear-wearing a mask. Having a mask at all seems out of character for the trucker-protestors given other photojournalism. Maybe it was a disguise?

Why would anyone think it is rational to tie the arson attempt to protestors? Have other incidents of arson been coincidental to the protests as in Minneapolis and elsewhere?

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

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

#719

Post by hamilyon2 » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #548

zuzun wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So cash not only grants people freedom and anonymity, it also creates local jobs instead of moving money as arbitrary transaction fees into the pockets of a credit card duopoly? Sounds terrible.

No, it increases costs on business, which reduces the number of jobs available.

Something just short-circuited here. So, plain act of talking money from your customer is... inefficiency? What kind of business are you thinking about? Online-only?

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

#720

Post by 14 » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

ladallada wrote: post #568

14 wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Canadian it’s like living with a bunch of lunatics and I can not believe so many people are okay with this. All I can say is I will never miss an election again. We need Trudeau gone badly but he has a lot of support from the east and no other party is positioned to beat him in an election. The ndp have sided with him on so many things I can no longer vote for them and the choices are limited.

Can you explain what you mean a bit more? What things you feel make people lunatics in this case?

The fact that they are so angry at these truckers they are willing to give up due process in a court of law and think it is such a good thing the government can swoop in and freeze someone’s money. I think it is very dangerous and worry some unhinged person will lose it and go from protesting to attacking. I didn’t donate to these truckers and I never participated in any protests so suppose I don’t have to worry this time. I also like to point out that yes the truckers were breaking the law. This angers people so much. I always like to remind them breaking the law is actually an unsung right we have as Canadians. Yes we can go to jail but we are not put in a chair and tortured or killed or have our family rounded up and executed. And this is a good thing. It was only in the 1970s that Canada last locked up a man for life after his third offence for being gay. So thankfully people fought those laws and protested in the streets openly gay which was illegal. So personally I don’t know if I support these truckers but if they are willing to break the law and be arrested for what they believe in by defying an order to leave then I think it is great. I do not condone violence however and the few fringe protesters doing dumb things should be arrested and charged. But standing in the street refusing to leave that’s something we should be thankful we can do.