Live data from Hacker News

Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

wsj.com

201–210 of 717 posts

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, and hat tip to the government for a job well done. There's a right and a wrong way to protest, they were given time to choose to do it right. Now that the threat is over and dispersed they're welcome to come back and protest peacefully. For an end to the vaccine mandates, that ended already. Silly sausages. For reference, the Emergencies Act doesn't 'suspend the constitution' it suspends certain Charter rights f…

> the threat You can see here how wrong and violent these protests were. The bouncy castle and hot tub were a danger to society! [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P74pbbhCZng [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hzfwaSVIvoA

Do you live in Canada, have family in Ottawa, or are you just consuming right-wing content in the US?

They loaded up the capital area with 3,200L of fuel and started bringing in propane tanks. You think that wouldn't be considered a threat in front of the White House? Especially since the fortified compound around the White House is significantly further from the roadway than the comparatively unguarded Parliament is from Wellington St.

With respect, I suggest you stick to commenting on the US, or at least things you have some specific knowledge of.

Maybe read some contemporaneous news coverage. From Ottawa where it was happening.

> Mayor Jim Watson declared a state of emergency Sunday after a dystopian weekend of carnival-like scenes, heightened lawlessness, growing tensions between protesters and residents, and relentless noise, diesel fumes and fireworks.

The fact you think the situation was limited to 'bouncy castles and hot tubs' is pretty telling of how little you know about what you're discussing.

You know the invocation of the Act was supported by multiple political parties at the Federal level and Provincial Premiers of all parties?

[1] https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/mayor-declares-eme...

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#202
Whether or not you agreed with the trucker protest in Canada, I hope we all agree it’s pretty terrifying that the method the state decided to use to silence protesters was freezing their bank accounts without due process, any trial, anything. Cash is the best weapon against this.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#203
post #66

The primary benefit of cashless is pretty much just the ability to be lazy. You swipe a card in a reader instead of having to count out cash. That's the major benefit. All things being equal, sure, it's more convenient. But all things are not equal; in my opinion the potential negatives that others in the thread have listed overwhelmingly outweigh the ability to be more lazy. That so many people have the desire to di…

The fact that getting mugged is so uncommon these days shows how naive this comment is to the second and third order effects of a cashless society. I think cash should always be an option, but I don’t pretend that cards haven’t dramatically improved our lives.

Everyone you see on the street has a slab of metal in their pocket that you can take apart and sell for parts online, or sell as a bricked device to some sucker. This cashless society is dealing with a robbery problem in places like Beverly Hills, because for some segments of our society its common to wear $30,000 on your wrist. A couple hundred cash perhaps in a wallet is honestly the low end of the potential take for a mugger these days, if they know where to mug.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#204
post #93

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

Crypto fixes this to some extent, but would require a chain that could handle a large volume of small transactions.

BTC's Lightneing Network solves the scaling issues; admittedly work still needs to be done but the infrastructure is sound; where it fails is entirely outside of the technical sphere.

Admittedly, I was more focused on Kazakhstan's populace uprising more than Canada's issues for personal reasons when the two occured--I can share why but are entirely moot for this argument.

As time went on and Bitcoin was used to bypass this egregious example of financial censorship I started to realize that this was a milestone: we can solve the technical issues with our technology, as we had in Ukraine in 2013/14 during the Maidan Revolution and would later do again during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in '22. But this is only a part of the solution.

What bifurcates it as a success or as a failure is often not even the goals it has accomplished but rather sadly it is entirely on the Governing body and the narrative the population that it governs adopts to said Governments actions; in the case Ukraine it was a complete success and has led to things like United24 because of it's immense impact in the early days of the war in the case of Canada, an incredibly draconian society masking as a liberal democracy as seen during COVID, showed its true face.

Many were aghast to see not just how myopic, but how absurd the laws they were enforcing were regarding seeing family or traveling even within provinces, but stood idly by and thought that nobody would resist and it was only a matter of time before things went back to 'normal' if they just obeyed (and things got extended further and further); it was a complete shock to me! I was working on a side-project with mainly people from Toronto and it was shocking to see the sheer brutality and contempt they had for their own from within...

Activism and street demos only work if they derail Society from it's normal operations, that is what it's intended goal is: to make Society pause and address the internal affairs of it's supposed Social Contract. Failing to do so, and let 'business as usual' continue while letting them 'vent' is the exact ultimatum most authoritarian and despots desire, as they can manipulate and shape it to serve it's own end: think the '2 minute Hate' illustrated in 1984.

As an early adopter of this tech, who has made most of his entire tech career in this space: I think Crypto has no real utility if it cannot secure it's own providence: and 99% all fail at that, even the best funded (ETH), whereas Bitcoin does solve this--when people see energy being mispsent what they fail to realize or take into account is the true cost of REAL verifiable security with an immutable record (ledger).

They never consider what this is for until things like this happen, often far too late, and they seem to undervalue the immense need for providence and trust in an ever-growing digital World until it directly harms them--most here never really ever experiencing this hence the prevailing sentiment of 'its all just grifters' not realizing that it is the VC and Ivy Leagues who start or hi-jack projects that actually do the most grifts.

Sadly, where this technology comes short is to ensure that tyrants do not suspend constitutions via decree, threaten legal action against legitimate businesses (exchanges), and ensures that the serfs/plebs who make Society function have a valid legal recourse to dispute and arbitrate these matters.

That's why street demos and activism is a fundamental part of being a Citizen in Western Society: minor disruptions to daily Life pale in comparison to reverting to the barbarism of living under authoritarian and despotic regimes: some of us are (un)lucky enough to have living generations who survived/lived through this first hand so we have a working memory to base our out-views on.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#205
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same way it's handled now, you charge a higher processing fee proportional to the chargeback risk in the industry. My only argument is that networks shouldn't be able to capriciously deny transactions that are legal, even if I disagree with them. I don't believe in the 2nd amendment, but to the extent it is lawful to buy a gun, you should be able to buy it with your Visa card, imo, and a lot of payment acquirers do n…

The reason the networks started denying service to firearms dealers is that the (Obama-era) Department of Justice pressured them to. They also went after pornography and marijuana dealers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

I don't disagree! I'm saying that by law that should not be an option.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the basis for this advice? Personally I'd be far more interested to learn that someone running for office refuses to use a credit card to buy groceries because they fear having that information collected and used against them... than that they once spent $500 in a single month on Twinkies. If someone wants to use your spending history against you they don't actually need your credit card bills these days, they…

Because three letter agencies have a huge incentive to trawl through politicians' private lives through credit card purchase data, and use that against them if they don't want to toe the line of these agencies, whose ex-employees are guests on the main stream media. Just leak enough to derail any politician.

There's presumably a lot of evidence of this you can point to...?

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally said 'lawful' transactions. Fraud is not lawful.

Then it wouldn't have protected Pornhub. The payment processors pulled out due to CSAM, revenge porn, and copyright infringement, none of which are legal.

Are you saying that's a bad thing?

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#208
post #10

Cash is great. Can't be tracked, credit card companies don't get to discriminate against the poor and create negative feedback loop traps that they can't out of, it's easier to be financially responsible with it. Bit unfortunate too that paying with cash just adds a tax onto the poor since the fees are basically priced into goods sold at stores, typically regardless of whether or not cash is used. But yeah, nice to h…

There is a cost to handling cash too. Don't know how it compares to cards but with the latter you don't need to have fleets of armored trucks to move money around and robbers can only steal stock.

I thought this was a story put out by card companies. I hear it (the implication it’s the same or more) a lot but often unsubstantiated

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what are the main benefits of going fully cashless One piece of advice I got a long time ago, from a family member in politics: Don't put your groceries on a credit card. Especially if you buy junk food or alcohol. Obviously the same goes for bars, tobacco, strip clubs, gun purchases[0], and lots of other perfectly legal things that you might not want being counted up if you ever run for office. At the systemic lev…

What's the basis for this advice? Personally I'd be far more interested to learn that someone running for office refuses to use a credit card to buy groceries because they fear having that information collected and used against them... than that they once spent $500 in a single month on Twinkies. If someone wants to use your spending history against you they don't actually need your credit card bills these days, they…

> What's the basis for this advice?

"The GoBeRmEnT Is GoNa TrAcK YoU"

Listen, you got a cell phone, and chances are that's going to give away far, far more than data that your credit card company holds on to.

They're just going to have a line -- "Food Lion, [Date] $88.23" -- not detailed list of your purchases.

Meanwhile if you use a membership card at any sort of grocery store, they absolutely will associate it with you; in many cases you have to register that card with your name and phone in order to use the points. Cash or credit, that's tracking you.

Until modern social media that -- grocery store membership cards -- were one of the best predictors of age, income, gender, etc. available.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they were making that argument, more that websites don't usually take cash anyway. (Can't imagine pornhub selling gift cards at the supermarket checkout next to the App store ones)

In North America, retail stores often sell prepaid Visa cards that can be used both offline and online. NYC cashless ban law exception allows a fee-free machine to convert cash to prepaid digital payment mechanism, e.g. stored value card. US Coinstar kiosks offer fee-free conversion of coins to Amazon and other gift cards.

Prepaid VISA doesn't get around the payment processor refusing to handle transactions for certain businesses though.

Maybe EFT (e-Check) or Zelle does? It's still on line and tracable but is not going through card processor networks.

Post reply on HN