131–140 of 498 posts
I went and checked various online papers with comment sections, and the comments have been massively negative to this. This is apparently not something people will easily accept, so it remains to be seen what happens.
Since when do governments care about what people think? Even with mass demonstrations they typically hardly move an inch.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
this would arguably be a great thing
I’m a vegetarian because of environmental (and more recently, ethical) reasons. I’m an enormous advocate of reducing the quantity of animal products that the world uses. This is definitely not a “great thing”. There are much less invasive ways to influence behavior and nudge consumers to consume fewer harmful products. Like simply using product-specific taxes or labeling requirements. Or targeting the producers direc…
"SSB claims they want a less time-consuming way of collecting and analysing household consumption statistics in order to inform tax policy, social assistance and child allowance." Aka the more we know about you, the more efficiently we can create policies to control your behavior to our liking.
You're already being tracked by the grocery stores, wouldn't it be better to be tracked by someone who at least tries to have your best interests at heart vs. the grocery industry who just wants to sell you more?
With cash and no store "loyalty" app - no.
> wouldn't it be better to be tracked by someone who at least tries to have your best interests at heart
But this is not the case here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or people can just ask for help if they need it
The people in society who need help the most often have the least trust in government and don't have the means to understand and navigate programmes that could help them.
"SSB claims they want a less time-consuming way of collecting and analysing household consumption statistics in order to inform tax policy, social assistance and child allowance." Aka the more we know about you, the more efficiently we can create policies to control your behavior to our liking.
You're already being tracked by the grocery stores, wouldn't it be better to be tracked by someone who at least tries to have your best interests at heart vs. the grocery industry who just wants to sell you more?
I don't know if that was sarcasm or you being really naive.
In the predatory capitalist US, the number of private companies- not subject to any real regulation, or supervision, or action on the part of citizens- that have exactly this data and more numbers literally in the thousands.
And while a lot of attention is paid to government data collection, it is very hard for various parts of the government in the US to get this information for administrative purposes- as distinct from criminal investigations- and even if government could, it would serve no purpose because except for policing, education, highway maintenance, delivery of mail and healthcare for military veterans, US government entities perform virtually no services.
In Norway, which has extremely high quality of life and a very competent government that runs things like a sovereign wealth fund to the express and explicit benefit of citizens, where the goals of data collection are further improvement of quality of life, the intent and capacity of delivery for which by the government is proven over and over again-
IOW, to be concerned about data collection by an entity that over and over again has demonstrated its competence, especially in the context of alternatives like the US-
WTF are people thinking.
“Hello #3576. You have reached your 1kg monthly limit of natural meat. Please consult the official list for alternatives.”
Or "you've reached your monthly quota of alcohol purchases". Which isn't far fetched at all! In parts of Canada, up into the 50s, you had to bring your permit booklet to buy alcohol from state operated stores where they recorded your purchases: https://www.tvo.org/article/buzzkillers-a-brief-history-of-t...
The ideological left push us more and more towards a dystopic future. Which doesn't seem very distant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're talking about the tracking done by reward systems then that's a voluntary agreement that people enter into. You can choose not to use a rewards program. As far as I know, if you use a credit card they only know the total of how much you spent and once again you can choose not to use a credit card or bank card and pay with cash if you wish. This proposed data collection has no opt out option. It's kind of ex…
What if the government said it was optional, but those who sign up get a 2% discount on their taxes? Would you find that more acceptable?
When people have nothing left to loose, that's where real change happens.