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Friend of mine calls CDBC's "Digital Slavery", I have a bad feeling about this idea.
This is programmable money where the government controls how and when you can spend it. It does not take long for most people to figure out how this restricts their freedom. I guess they will make it a bargain in some way such as charging a higher rate for cash as they are doing here. This may be a training ground for other governments to learn how to force or incentivize us to use their CBDC's.
I think it'll take a government like China or North Korea with no inhibitions to fully utilize the potential of this technology
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> there are infinite applications on the spectrum of good and evil. Which means it should be firmly in the hands of the people and never in those of a centralized government, in particular, never one which collects taxes directly from the people. > If we are going to allow programmable money, we must allow competitors (e.g. citystate crypto, nationstate crypto, non-CB crypto) and incumbent payments like cash. Well..…
> Well.. precisely. At this point, though.. what incentive to the population is there for a central government "programmable" token of value? None
I can't think of any other pleasant idea. It all boils down to applied surveillance.
This is programmable money where the government controls how and when you can spend it. It does not take long for most people to figure out how this restricts their freedom. I guess they will make it a bargain in some way such as charging a higher rate for cash as they are doing here. This may be a training ground for other governments to learn how to force or incentivize us to use their CBDC's.
Lots of HNews'ers claim cash is the only way to keep your freedoms, but that simply glosses over the fact that even if you have piles of cash under your bed, you can't do anything meaningful if the government decides to prevent/limit banks from accepting cash deposits - say in a 5 year timeframe.
After a while, businesses will simply stop accepting cash.
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That rant views freedom as purely individual, and not collective, or more likely the compromises in other to have both. It also doesn't explain the difference between CBDC with traditional debit/credit card systems, which do impose a ton of restrictions to some in order to protect freedoms for others (whether demonitizing a porn site that does not hold uploaders accountable, or reducing tax evasion).
Use of one bank's credit card is voluntary and not mandated by the central authority. It's the difference between choosing to only read the New York Times or a government enforcement of one source of news
Same in the US, you can't not have a credit card because of the credit score system there. Use of a credit card is mandatory because you need it to financially "exist."
Friend of mine calls CDBC's "Digital Slavery", I have a bad feeling about this idea.
The odd thing is they try to sell it as a technology? Where is the innovation? It's just private payment networks moving onto one single network controlled by a central authority. No authority has had this responsibility in human history before. If this authority is abused you won't be able to put gas in your car if the authority denies it
bunch of nutters.
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I was surprised at charging a higher rate for cash, until reading the article where it didn't mention that. What was mentioned was a service fee for withdrawing cash above the limits from bank branches. Which also seemed surprising - to reduce the demand for cash-cash, restrict the supply. That that article mentions 85% of cash in circulation is held outside banks does not also seem alarming, it'd be interesting to r…
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As a Nigerian, one of my biggest goals is to save enough to invest in a second passport. Since the last administration took over, their policies have been spectacularly bad - and that's coming from me, a Nigerian (and African) who has only known bad government all his life. When COVID-19 kicked in and oil revenues dried up, the government turned on the printing presses and churned out an awful amount of Nairas. Like…
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Sweden's banks had a joint ATM system[1] since ~2010, I admittedly have no idea about the situation on the countryside, but at least in Stockholm, they're in ample supply seeing that it is extremely rare that someone pays with cash. I once had to get about 15000SEK (~1500€) in cash, and that wasn't a problem at all. [1]: https://www.bankomat.se/
Interesting to see And it is what we all fall back on when the technology fails us. In other words, cash has far from lost its age-old reason for being! in the waffle. That's also my understanding - that cash becomes extremely valuable in times of acute crisis (like a zombie apocalypse) because it has all the characteristics (divisible, recognised, sufficiently rare, durable and easy to carry, easier to 'barter' than a can of beans, etc) of... money.
For anyone unsure as to why CBDC's are a horrendous idea please read this thread: https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1494444624630403083?lang... Or as an unrolled thread here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1494444624630403083.html
That rant views freedom as purely individual, and not collective, or more likely the compromises in other to have both. It also doesn't explain the difference between CBDC with traditional debit/credit card systems, which do impose a ton of restrictions to some in order to protect freedoms for others (whether demonitizing a porn site that does not hold uploaders accountable, or reducing tax evasion).