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What is the cost of a cashless society?

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Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#111

Post by imtringued »

mcv wrote: post #79
kevincox wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you give me the choice between being able to buy a loaf of bread and having my payments private I'm feeding myself ten times out of ten. I'm not saying that privacy isn't important but I don't think it is the main problem compared to people being unable to use currency.

But that's the point: people will not be able to buy a loaf of bread if they don't meet with the system's approval. Look, I switched to completely contactless payment through my phone since Covid, and it's so convenient I'm not going back. And it's hard for me to imagine people who don't have access to a bank account or smartphone, but those people do exist, and they may eventually become unable to buy a loaf of brea…

>But that's the point: people will not be able to buy a loaf of bread if they don't meet with the system's approval.

...

Seriously, your argument is that privacy violations will cause people to starve? not the fact that there is a currency monopoly and you can't issue your own currency and start your own regional economy from scratch if the currency is concentrated in the hands of rich people and hence cannot be used and you must constantly borrow new money into the system which eventually gets saved by the rich forcing you to go to the bank and ask them permission over and over again? The dystopia you are imagining is already there. The only thing you're losing is privacy which is solved by GNU Taler.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#112

Post by imtringued »

cmroanirgo wrote: post #103
mcv wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the point: people will not be able to buy a loaf of bread if they don't meet with the system's approval. Look, I switched to completely contactless payment through my phone since Covid, and it's so convenient I'm not going back. And it's hard for me to imagine people who don't have access to a bank account or smartphone, but those people do exist, and they may eventually become unable to buy a loaf of brea…

Due to government tactics, a lot of australians are now deliberately using cash a) for the privacy b) as a statement against orwellian mechanisms. I find it really sad when people are blaise about something that once gone, can't be put back. A social credit system, & everyone talking about it as an inevitable thing, have already bought into the propaganda. I find it inevitable that with sentiments like that, that i'l…

There are anonymous payment services. Just mandate the use of those in the laws.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#113

Post by zizee »

cmroanirgo wrote: post #98
Nursie wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Australia has phone based drivers licenses This is news to me, out here on the West coast. Might have to look into that!

Whole you're looking, check out the digital identity act which completely contravenes the referendum we had (in the ?80's) which voted against having a national identity card.

Whilst I am not super keen to have a national identity card, the Australian government has effectively linked all this info together already, with agencies cooperating.

Also, I'm not sure that a referendum held 35 years ago really means very much. In that time the population has grown from 16 million to 26 million, and many of the people who voted in the referendum would no longer be alive.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#114

Post by 16amxn16 »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #91

New Zealand has gone largely cashless (and entirely chequeless). Everyone is paid by direct credit to their account. You pay your bills via direct credit / debit. I don't think any bank is charging fees (for customers) for electronic transactions via card, or direct credits/debits. They don't even charge a fee for using another bank's ATM anymore. I am always amazed at how often people in the US mention cheques. NZ r…

No post body was provided.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#115

Post by 0xy »

zizee wrote: post #109
0xy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Australia took the extraordinary step of violating UN Human Rights codes it agreed to when preventing citizens and in some cases foreign residents from leaving the country during the pandemic I'd say they're already on the way. After all, the action was unprecedented, contravened human rights and aligned their response with North Korea and China, the only other countries who have ever had such restrictions. Thi…

> After massive sacrifice, the country is now topping the charts in COVID deaths You sound so out of touch with what the Australian experience has been. Australia has had 14k deaths from COVID, vs over 1 million for the US. Percapita that is about 1/5 the deaths of the US. We've also had about 1.5 times the reported cases per capita than the US. The strategy was to lock down until the population was vaccinated. Once…

I explained how Australia trampled on UN Human Rights charters, including by essentially imprisoning foreign residents. What does that have to do with lockdown policies?

There's a pretty big leap between mask mandates (a pretty common response) and preventing foreigners from leaving, a UN Human Rights violation that almost no other country engaged in other than dictatorships like North Korea and China.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#116

Post by zizee »

Nursie wrote: post #46
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #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 th…

> Australia has phone based drivers licenses This is news to me, out here on the West coast. Might have to look into that!

They had a trial in Queensland. The plan is to allow both for the foreseeable future.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#117

Post by 0xy »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #100
0xy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Australia took the extraordinary step of violating UN Human Rights codes it agreed to when preventing citizens and in some cases foreign residents from leaving the country during the pandemic I'd say they're already on the way. After all, the action was unprecedented, contravened human rights and aligned their response with North Korea and China, the only other countries who have ever had such restrictions. Thi…

I always love these strong opinions about Australasian responses to Covid, and how they tend to significantly differ from the opinions of the people who live in that country. Something about it really riled some segments overseas up, to the point they were frothing at the month claiming Australia had concentration camps, and NZ was a socialist hellhole. You're right about the Australian government's obsession with su…

So your response is a strawman argument? Where did I mention concentration camps?

I'm referring to UN Human Rights charters, of which Australia is a signatory.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#118

Post by [deleted] »

nmca wrote: post #97
0xy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Australia took the extraordinary step of violating UN Human Rights codes it agreed to when preventing citizens and in some cases foreign residents from leaving the country during the pandemic I'd say they're already on the way. After all, the action was unprecedented, contravened human rights and aligned their response with North Korea and China, the only other countries who have ever had such restrictions. Thi…

The relevant metric here is cumulative excess mortality, not current infection rate.

[deleted]

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#119

Post by rjbwork »

16amxn16 wrote: post #114
EdwardDiego wrote: post #91

New Zealand has gone largely cashless (and entirely chequeless). Everyone is paid by direct credit to their account. You pay your bills via direct credit / debit. I don't think any bank is charging fees (for customers) for electronic transactions via card, or direct credits/debits. They don't even charge a fee for using another bank's ATM anymore. I am always amazed at how often people in the US mention cheques. NZ r…

Quoted post unavailable.

Not an appropriate comment for HN. You should read the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#120

Post by imtringued »

AinderS wrote: post #70
kevincox wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you give me the choice between being able to buy a loaf of bread and having my payments private I'm feeding myself ten times out of ten. I'm not saying that privacy isn't important but I don't think it is the main problem compared to people being unable to use currency.

That is precisely my point. The ability to prevent you from buying a loaf of bread will be used for control.

You must be really naive if you think that isn't the case already.

Imagine a bitcoin standard where the rich own all the Bitcoin and governments force you to use Bitcoin. The rich have no reason to lend you Bitcoin for free, you don't need the Bitcoin, you need the loaf of bread and you are willing to trade your time for that loaf of bread but since the middleman Bitcoin was inserted, you are forced to borrow in the hope that you can pay the money back. Nobody lends out money for free, you are going to have to pay interest. The best part is that you are going to default as the interest payments end up in the wallet of the rich guy you just borrowed money from, due to the magic of compound interest he is going to lend his money out again. This means your debt is unpayable because interest payments must recirculate in the economy and somehow end up with you again but in this case they are just being lent out again. The only thing you can do is outcompete some other guy and take the money he borrowed into the economy to pay your own debt. Since someone is going to lose this competition there are going to be destitute and poor people in your society. The only known way out of this mess that is commonly practiced is to force the economy to grow faster which degrades the environment and results in ever inequality. The obvious solution and actually working solution is to make liquidity have a cost so that withholding money from the economy is impossible over the long term.

Money is power and control for those who have it and their power extends beyond what they can buy with it, it also extends to those who don't have it.

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