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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?

#231

Post by _8j50 »

starkd wrote: post #222
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #201

The article is very superficial about cost. It's not just about money, it's about freedom and democracy. A cashless society, like everything with computer, information control or centralize power, is fine when you are riding the happy path. As soon as you are not inline with society, or that slthe system itself become no more adapted to it's context, it's a nightmare.

Indeed. This is why a digital currency is only viable if you have the ability to make anonymous third party transactions. Until then, I remain a hard no. But even bitcoin doesn't truly offer that.

Even then, is your participation in that system regulated? Do you need a smartphone with government issued id as a requirement? And internet usage and access? With cash you just need the person to hand you the currency paper. Will there be physical representarion of the anonymous digital currency that can be used by anyone that posseses them without authentication?

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#232

Post by 4ggr0 »

noasaservice wrote: post #218
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Going cashless will inevitably become a major boost for crypto These are unlinked. Demographics using crypto loosely correlate with those going cashless. Cashless countries even more loosely correlate with crypto adoption. > people will stop seeing breaking the law as anything objectionable We have a long tradition of this with our 21-year drinking age. People can differentiate between the laws they can break and t…

> We have a long tradition of this with our 21-year drinking age. People can differentiate between the laws they can break and the ones they shouldn’t. Well, not really. It was originally 18 to drink. Thanks to the federal government linking interstate funds to a requirement states support 21 drinking age is how they did that. In some states, even 16 could drink beer prior to the feds fucking things up.

> In some states, even 16 could drink beer prior to the feds fucking things up.

That's one thing I always found funny when looking at the US as a european. When I had my first legal beer as a sixteen year old I remembered that I would only be allowed to do this in the US in five more years. Of course the actual first beer was drank when I was fifteen.

What I always wondered - In countries where beer is allowed at sixteen, people usually try it when fifteen, because doing forbidden things is obviously cool during this age. But in the US, do kids start illegaly drinking when they're twenty, or do y'all also start experimenting earlier?

EDIT: Also love the fact that 18 year olds in the US can join the military, yet aren't allowed to drink a beer until three years later.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#233

Post by jeroenhd »

mellavora wrote: post #213
jeroenhd wrote: post #145

I think a cashless society can work perfectly well. There's a single place that I still use cash with because they don't take card (probably avoiding tax) so every time I go there, I come back with change to tip to delivery people when I order food. Everything from my rent to my grocery shopping is done digitally and I honestly think it's great. However, that's probably because I live in a debit-based country. Debit…

Wait- your argument that a cashless society can work well is that debit cards can be distributed to everyone, and debit cards limit bank risk? which boils down to: "a cashless society can work well because we can use tech to make society cashless." this is not a substantive argument.

There is more to a cashless society than debit cards and tech. It can work because for a great many people it works already.

However, I don't see any cashless society working well with credit based systems, simply because of the credit score/debt history connection.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#234

Post by 1ark »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #226

Cash works during a power outage, or as was recently experienced in Canada because Rogers f'ed up their network, service disruptions.

To continue on Canada. Or if you have you credit card/bank account frozen from being targeted by the government for protesting.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#235

Post by 4ggr0 »

collegeburner wrote: post #223
wink wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ATM in Cuba ate my VISA on a Friday night while on vacation. That was a fun diversion getting it back. And on an actual disaster scale that ranks pretty low, as we had a second card (with a low limit) and still some amount of cash, so we weren't even completely out of money. Maybe it's better if you're somewhere close to home... but on the other hand if everyone is cashless, who could you borrow money from? Maybe…

[flagged]

Is giving money to capitalists overall that much better?

Giving money to an international corpo which dodges paying taxes by parking their money in a tax-free country while selling overpriced products produced by third-world, low-wage workers(including children) seems wrong as well, yet most of us do it very frequently without thinking about it.

Signed, someone living and working in a capitalist society.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#236

Post by jeroenhd »

perf1 wrote: post #151
jeroenhd wrote: post #145

I think a cashless society can work perfectly well. There's a single place that I still use cash with because they don't take card (probably avoiding tax) so every time I go there, I come back with change to tip to delivery people when I order food. Everything from my rent to my grocery shopping is done digitally and I honestly think it's great. However, that's probably because I live in a debit-based country. Debit…

It's a receipt for disaster. Especially if they centralize it even more by replacing banks with a Central Bank that fully controls the Digital Currency. Which they are already planning and testing. This will be misused. And people can be controlled with this in a really bad way. If your Social Credit Score is low you could be taxed higher or even forbidden to drive your car or travel, for example. Your food choices c…

You don't need a cashless society for any of that. Background checks and basic identification requirements can already impose oppressive regulation on everyone even if the products are paid for by cash.

Cash is just an IOU for the bank that can be devalued at any point in time. If you want to avoid government oppression, go back to bartering rare metals. "Yes but what if the government turns oppressive" isn't an avoidable scenario, cashless or not.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#237

Post by 1ark »

preisschild wrote: post #214

Cash is going away someday, thats for sure. Digital payments are just more comfortable to use and it allows to send money over vast distances in a few seconds, which is useful for buying stuff on the internet. I'd just wish open source, decentralized, not-crypto-bro currencies like Monero ( https://www.getmonero.org/ ), that are unlike Bitcoin actually anonymous, would be more commonly accepted outside of darknet mar…

In a way Monero has been good money last couple of years. Not fluctuating too much up or down compared to others. So using it as fungible money could be ok. Monero has trade-offs though, how many are mined and have there been exploits/bugs in the supply?

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#238

Post by anovikov »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #208
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>to the point that people will stop seeing breaking the law as anything objectionable, destroying the very notion of law and order. This is already the case in the tax brackets that are too far down there for most of HN to have any familiarity with. People there don't just think "oh it's the law, better blindly lick the boot" when they encounter a legal requirement. They think "what's the fine, what's the enforcement…

This also happens above the HN tax bracket too. It's only the professional class that seems to follow the rules like this.

In US, maybe. One thing i love about Europe is that people here tend to really follow law to the letter, and actually know it. And consult with lawyers in any case that seems in doubt. When vast majority of people are like that, it's no longer "boot licking", it's for everyone's benefit. It's only stupid when everyone else but you ignores the law.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#239

Post by cnasc »

4ggr0 wrote: post #232
noasaservice wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have a long tradition of this with our 21-year drinking age. People can differentiate between the laws they can break and the ones they shouldn’t. Well, not really. It was originally 18 to drink. Thanks to the federal government linking interstate funds to a requirement states support 21 drinking age is how they did that. In some states, even 16 could drink beer prior to the feds fucking things up.

> In some states, even 16 could drink beer prior to the feds fucking things up. That's one thing I always found funny when looking at the US as a european. When I had my first legal beer as a sixteen year old I remembered that I would only be allowed to do this in the US in five more years. Of course the actual first beer was drank when I was fifteen. What I always wondered - In countries where beer is allowed at six…

> In countries where beer is allowed at sixteen, people usually try it when fifteen, because doing forbidden things is obviously cool

Pretty similar in the US. I didn’t try drinking at that age, but many high schoolers will.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#240

Post by lightedman »

Findecanor wrote: post #164
Arch485 wrote: post #68

I am certainly not pro-cashless, but the points this article makes are lackluster at best. In an entirely cashless society, the problem isn't that "not everyone is included", the problem is surveillance. You can solve inclusion easily enough... Replace cash with prepaid cards (an idea posed in the article), or issue small, purpose-built digital wallets (equivalent to a low-power smartphone, except only for managing y…

You're overlooking a couple of things: person-to-person transactions, and the disabled/impaired. Among those who protest the most against a cashless society are interest groups for the elderly and the handicapped. The blind need their money amounts to be tactile, well ... because they need almost everything they interact with to be. You can't use prepaid cards for person-to-person transactions, but there are various…

My contactless payment (GPay with my debit card on it) on my phone works without a cellular connection. It literally just physically acts as a card. This phone has had the SIM removed, airplane mode on with wifi shut off, and only the NFC functionality active. It exists solely as my contactless payment method. The only real issue - you have to keep it powered.
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