Norway to track all supermarket purchases? • Hacker News Board

Re: Norway to track all supermarket purchases?

#211

Post by jacooper » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

Beltalowda wrote: post #128

basisword wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is no for stupid solutions like tracking everybody’s meat consumption and a government limiting it. You will be swiftly told to fuck off (and rightly so). You need to get people on your side and contributing without massively changing their lifestyles, instead of alienating them. We need massive reductions in business contributions to climate change and we need investment in current clean energy solutions…

I don't necessarily disagree in principle, but I think what you're saying will be very hard or impossible. Those "business contributions to climate change" exist because they're producing goods that consumers want; you can't significantly reduce that without also affecting consumer lifestyles, by reducing the options for the number of goods, or making them more expensive. Further research in clean energy is all very…

Once we exsuahst all options to reduce climate change with limited impact on the customer, things like renewable energy(people don't care where their energy comes from), replacing unnecessary plastics with paper, etc, we can then talk about things like limiting meat consumption.

But affecting peoples lifes without actually tackling industries and corporation that do way more harm is just stupid and basically serves Oil companies targets, they created the "carbon footprint" just to distract people from focusing on them.

Re: Norway to track all supermarket purchases?

#212

Post by mdmglr » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

mateo1 wrote: post #29

People seem to suddenly forget that these transactions are already tracked and individually linked to you. Should we allow anyone to collect that data except democratically elected governments? What's the logic behind this?

> People seem to suddenly forget that these transactions are already tracked and individually linked to you.

Is this true? I thought only if you joined a rewards program.

Re: Norway to track all supermarket purchases?

#213

Post by bbddg » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 4:40 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #206

bbddg wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just describing laws. Is the worry here that they could more effectively enforce laws because of this tracking? Is that a bad thing?

It is when you don't trust the lawmaking process is acting in your best interests. And distrust of that process is extremely high atm (I believe trust in politicians is below 50% in the US).

Well we don't really have a functional democracy in the US. That's really the core problem to fix before you can start trusting the government more.

Re: Norway to track all supermarket purchases?

#214

Post by newaccount2021 » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 4:40 PM UTC

Iv wrote: post #146

giantg2 wrote: post #14

"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.

The goal of a democratic state is not to control the behavior of its population.

No post body was provided.

Re: Norway to track all supermarket purchases?

#215

Post by Broken_Hippo » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

hericium wrote: post #133

jvm___ wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> You're already being tracked by the grocery stores 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.

"With cash and no store "loyalty" app - no."

Oh, but you are. You are lumped in with other folks using cash and no loyalty card. There is a demographic like you, in other words. You might very well be tracked through the store so that they can study where you go and what you stop at as well.

> wouldn't it be better to be tracked by someone who at least tries to have your best interests at heart

Ok. Except that they might just use it to do good overall too. I very highly doubt you can be any more sure than the rest of us.

Re: Norway to track all supermarket purchases?

#216

Post by ceejayoz » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

karencarits wrote: post #178

One should be aware that Norway already has very comprehensive registers and databases about the population. Currently, it has only been a benefit, I think, as it enables detailed quality control of say health care services and high-quality register studies. For example, all health/hospital records of deceased Norwegians are digitalized ten years after death and added to a national register. No way to refuse. In my o…

Yep; societally, they've got a very different attitude towards privacy.

Everyone's salary is publicly available online. (So's the fact that you looked!) https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40669239

Re: Norway to track all supermarket purchases?

#217

Post by wutbrodo » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

jonahbenton wrote: post #142

hammock wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grocery stores who track me are subject to the pressures of competitive enterprise. The government is not. And that's to say nothing of the fact that, at least in the US, about 50% of the entire population at any given time tend NOT to believe that the government has their best interest in mind

Quoted post unavailable.

Yes, in the mundane literal sense, they are subject to competition in a way government is not. This is blindingly obvious to anyone whose brain hasn't been rotted by extremist populist discourse. We (rightfully) worry about excessive market power when companies are still nowhere close to the degree of monopoly that govt has by design.

I constantly make decisions at a moment's notice to patronize stores other than Amazon and Walmart. I don't recall the last time I was able to choose to live a la carte under a specific German or Chilean law.

I say all of this neutrally. Government is coercive and monopolistic, because it's the institution that we chose to channel as much of society's coercion as possible. It's why we have nominal democratic control over it: because there's no alternative to it. It's absurd how people too dim to understand this need to shove everything into the framing of "govt has no downsides, the market has no upsides" and warp reality into claims that even famously powerful companies like Amazon are more optional than govt is.

Re: Norway to track all supermarket purchases?

#218

Post by leksak » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #149

axg11 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This might be, because the programs are often not helpful. Here in germany I know stories of how asking for help mainly resulted in the children taken away (and cared for badly). It depends on the area and the people working on it, I also know of good institutions, but I can see, why the so called underclass is sceptical of the common state institutions. Most help that comes, comes with hard obligations, that mainly…

I remember this one time when I had a hard time making ends meet so I got a housing subsidy which made me be able to afford rent at the time. This was more or less the first 6 months of that year. After that I got a job, and cancelled my subsidy the moment I started my employment. I got "back debt" and had to pay back a substantial amount of the subsidy I've gotten (remember: without it, I wouldn't have made rent routinely). Effectively, while paying back that debt, as a gainfully employed person - I had less money at the end of each month (after paying rent that is) than while on the subsidy (after paying rent).

I did feel kept down at that time.

Re: Norway to track all supermarket purchases?

#219

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 4:44 PM UTC

Iv wrote: post #176

dane-pgp wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowledge is power, and power corrupts, so what you're saying is "I don't mind giving the Norwegian government absolute power, because they aren't absolutely corrupt (yet)".

I would say that the government having the same amount of knowledge that private companies have is not necessarily a bad thing.

[deleted]

Re: Norway to track all supermarket purchases?

#220

Post by jacooper » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

Iv wrote: post #205

jacooper wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to track everyone to ration resources. You can just say, 1KG per person, and voilla its done.

Uh, you literally have to track people's consumption to ration resources. During WWII it was done with state-issued ration tickets and a crackdown on the inevitable black market that emerged. That's a good alternative to this.

Why would Norway need to ration meat anyway ?