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What is the cost of a cashless society?

thewalrus.ca

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Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks can freeze your account for undisclosed reasons too so I'm not sure I see the point.

Cash is the illusion of autonomy and control of one’s financial destiny to those who don’t believe in regulation as a recourse mechanism for financial inclusion. The solution is not cash, it is regulators who will kick the door in when you’ve suffered injury in the course of using financial infrastructure or services.

I would like both, can we please have that?

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#32
Australia's been cashless for a long time now and has no laws requiring acceptance of cash so a lot of places are cashless only. Even the old lady who has a tea and snack cart at the train station is cashless here. I'll state some benefits:

Public transport becomes much better. You tap your card or phone and never bother with the hassle of a ticket ever again. You probably never realized just how much of a barrier the ticketing fuss was to public transport but all of a sudden you start using it a lot more.

Small conveniences based on cashless payment start appearing everywhere. I've noticed cashless vending machines for really rare use cases have started to appear where i suspect they'd be too low value/high maintainance if they required cash. I'd put electric scooters/bikes here too. Some things wouldn't work or be as successful without cashless systems. Lot's of these examples but i don't need to list them all out.

Taxation. You may argue this is a negative. I think it's a positive that it's harder to cheat the system. I like fairness. You can argue that there should be lower tax but i won't support any argument that it's OK for some to skip tax while others pay.

Safety. The tea lady at the station is now 100% cashless so simply can't be robbed (well kids might steal snacks off the cart but that's minor).

No more wallets. Australia has phone based drivers licenses and with no cash It's normal to carry a phone and nothing else. One less thing to carry and worry about.

I get that a cashless society would be worse under a totalitarian dictatorship than a cash based society under a totalitarian dictatorship. I'd rather work to avoid the totalitarian dictatorship part than the cashless part though.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#33

I think this is a good thing. It will prevent Terrorism, and keep us all from buying Porn, so no more onanism or Luciferian child abuse and cannibalism. Also will eliminate drugs.

This is probably the most naive comment in this thread. At that bar is set pretty high.

Where there's a will there's a way...

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks can freeze your account for undisclosed reasons too so I'm not sure I see the point.

Cash is the illusion of autonomy and control of one’s financial destiny to those who don’t believe in regulation as a recourse mechanism for financial inclusion. The solution is not cash, it is regulators who will kick the door in when you’ve suffered injury in the course of using financial infrastructure or services.

The solution of "let's just have smart and benevolent rulers" to the old "Who will guard the guards?" question doesn't have the greatest track record.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash is the illusion of autonomy and control of one’s financial destiny to those who don’t believe in regulation as a recourse mechanism for financial inclusion. The solution is not cash, it is regulators who will kick the door in when you’ve suffered injury in the course of using financial infrastructure or services.

The solution of "let's just have smart and benevolent rulers" to the old "Who will guard the guards?" question doesn't have the greatest track record.

Does the need for constant vigilance suck? Yes. Is it necessary because humans will be humans? Also yes. If change is inevitable, as is turnover in governance and those who participate in it, than naturally systems and underlying mechanisms must be maintained to ensure stability.

People problems demand people solutions. I know, it’s a bummer. No tech saved Kansas abortion rights earlier this week. Overwhelming constituent turnout to vote did (voter registration is up 1000% in Kansas). (Used only as an example for my thesis)

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#37

I think this is a good thing. It will prevent Terrorism, and keep us all from buying Porn, so no more onanism or Luciferian child abuse and cannibalism. Also will eliminate drugs.

This is probably the most naive comment in this thread. At that bar is set pretty high. Where there's a will there's a way...

Not naive, trolling.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#38
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd feed myself nine times and eat leftovers on the tenth. Privacy isn't the most important thing in the world but it's shortsighted to just throw it out the window. You don't need it 'til you need it. It's okay to be friends with people who can't keep a secret but you need to have at least one friend who can.

This comment is identical to the one you responded to.

10/10 != 9/10

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks can freeze your account for undisclosed reasons too so I'm not sure I see the point.

Cash is the illusion of autonomy and control of one’s financial destiny to those who don’t believe in regulation as a recourse mechanism for financial inclusion. The solution is not cash, it is regulators who will kick the door in when you’ve suffered injury in the course of using financial infrastructure or services.

It's not a complete illusion. Cash transactions can't just be shut down with a push of a button- although it might not seem like much, it's a significant hurdle for authoritarianism.

Yeah, all systems are fallible. But systems that fail on the side of the individual are preferable to those that fail on the side of the institution. So let's strive for individual liberty instead of wishing for benevolent rulers.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks can freeze your account for undisclosed reasons too so I'm not sure I see the point.

Cash is the illusion of autonomy and control of one’s financial destiny to those who don’t believe in regulation as a recourse mechanism for financial inclusion. The solution is not cash, it is regulators who will kick the door in when you’ve suffered injury in the course of using financial infrastructure or services.

The reality is sometimes that regulators kick the door in for banks financially including legal stuff: Operation Choke Point [1]

The consequence of abolishing cash seems to be total financial control and that is a bit like arming the police: of course you might need military equipment for fighting a cartel.

But applying it to daily operation is very cruel to parts of society.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

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