Earlier quoted context omitted.
what’s terrorism?
Any sort of violence that the people in power don't like
You mean any form of political activity that the people on power don't like. Violence is too high of a bar.
What is the cost of a cashless society?
191–200 of 294 posts
Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?
#192My biggest fear is not cashless society, it's humanless payment processing. If you think losing access to your Google account for unspecified terms violations is bad, what about a payment processing computer malfunctioning? A few years ago my debit card refused checkout at a supermarket. After the cashier rebooted the card reader machine, it ate a hundred bucks from my account without confirming the purchase. When I…
A while ago, a larger German bank double processed all withdrawals occurring around the end of the month - rent and associated costs for many people. I know a few folks that ended up stranded with no access to funds due to that.
Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?
#193My biggest fear is not cashless society, it's humanless payment processing. If you think losing access to your Google account for unspecified terms violations is bad, what about a payment processing computer malfunctioning? A few years ago my debit card refused checkout at a supermarket. After the cashier rebooted the card reader machine, it ate a hundred bucks from my account without confirming the purchase. When I…
Living in Asia I've seen:
- People's account getting skimmed without much recourse - Bank/Wallet service being unavailable/down for hours - Money being debited into a black whole when transferring or paying, taking days or weeks to be refunded.
Resulted in people being stranded, not being able to go home, not able to go to work, not being able to afford groceries, meal, medecine, rent...
Absolute nightmare, removing cash will impact the poorest the most, it already does.
Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?
#194Earlier 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.
There is no solution. Just look at the thread. There are people against replicating the security and privacy model of cash through digital payment services like GNU Taler.
A world where you can ensure your privacy in both cash and digital payments would be better simply because if the government takes one of them away you still have the other. So instead, we argue for worse is better. Only cash is allowed to be anonymous, only cash is supposed to protect your privacy, only cash does bla bla bla, people are following the letter of their ideology, not it's spirit.
Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 consti…
The existence of cash demonstrates that there is a well functioning vigilance free payment system.
That is a good argument in favour of building a digital equivalent.
Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?
#196New 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…
Just like cash, people ignore the benefits of checks. I remember buying a house and receiving about 3 notices of rampant wire fraud when you send closing costs. Realtors or even worse title organizations and crappy security meant you needed to double, triple check the wire details, because once you send that money - it's gone. Instead of that silly game, I went to bank, got a draft made out to the title company, and…
> I went to bank, got a draft made out to the title company, and stay with me here hand delivered the check
You could do the same, except with your bank on the phone while the title agency reads out wire instructions. Hell, you could bring your banker.
Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?
#197New 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…
Just like cash, people ignore the benefits of checks. I remember buying a house and receiving about 3 notices of rampant wire fraud when you send closing costs. Realtors or even worse title organizations and crappy security meant you needed to double, triple check the wire details, because once you send that money - it's gone. Instead of that silly game, I went to bank, got a draft made out to the title company, and…
In the UK when you set up bank transfer the legal entity names are verified and displayed back tot he user and asked to be matched. This helps reduce wrong account detail transfers. Not full proof but does help.
Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?
#198Why is this framed like a hypothetical scenario when there's an abundance of countries that are already cashless and have been so for a long time? I haven't even seen a physical bill in many years. No idea how the coins look nowadays.
Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?
#199> There’s no question printed or minted currency is grubby and kind of gross (paper banknotes, studies demonstrate, can be covered in everything from E. coli to fecal matter).
What's with this compulsive obsession with hygiene? Our own bodies contain about 3 times more microbes than human cells [1]. The air we breath is full of microbes, pollen and spores (not to mention the chemical pollutants nobody seems to care about). Any surface we touch - door handles, pieces of paper, keyboard keys, sofas, etc. - is full of microbes. Just saying...
Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
But you can have almost all of that while still having cash! I can see the benefit of security for some people (eg train lady) and that could be one of exceptions but I believe most places should be mandated to take cash payments as privacy and redundancy should prioritised more than ever. We know from experience that government, whether totalitarian or not, can abuse any power they have. That’s why we have checks an…
You never worked in a store that got robbed? I saw a video once of a bus driver who got a shotgun shoved into his face. Those things no longer happen now.
Fortunately no but I’ve been personally robbed though when they took the cash in my wallet. I still carry around cash.
> I saw a video of a bus driver who got a shotgun shoved into his face
I too have seen videos of violence. Welcome to the internet.
EDIT: note that I don’t disagree with some exceptions and going mainly cashless. Most people will be cashless as it’s convenient. But I’m arguing for that having 5% to 10% cash usage in our society is better than 100% cashless.