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

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

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm, I dislike this weird defensiveness of newspeak. Does it suspend some rights available under normal circumstances? If yes, then it effectively suspends the constitution? Why does it feel like Simpsons nailed it so hard when Lisa proposed temporary refund adjustments and people cheered thrice out of sheer misunderstanding of the language used. And all that before we get to the part whether giving government power…

The Emergencies Act and how it's applied are governed by the Charter. It's a function of government as defined under the Charter. It's not a suspension thereof. It's moving into a different mode of operation, sure, but the it's still all a defined function of that system. As [1] states: > Any temporary laws made under the act are subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Bill of Rights, and must…

> In fact, once the emergency is over they're required by law to hold an inquiry on whether the action was justified in the first place.

So the government will investigate... the government. Do they at least wait for an administration change? Worked out beautifully for police departments...

> the Senate or the Governor General - or honestly probably the King (albeit risking a constitutional crisis) - at any time, and all the temporary laws expire.

Are any of those actually elected or are these just positions nominated by ... the same government who declared the suspension of rights?

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

#372
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at best you suspect it, you don't know it unless you're on the sending or receiving side of the transaction. it shouldn't be my decision whether i want to allow the transaction, even if i wouldn't want to allow it. i'm not in a position to perform due legal process to determine whether you're indeed being paid for a hit job. the provider should be in a neutral position.

I asked a specific question and you refuse to answer it because your entire premise is based on not being able to know if someone is engaging in unethical behavior. That's premise is seriously flawed. The problem you're trying solve is caused by lack of competition and near monopoly players. The fix isn't to force those businesses to ignore ethics. The fix is hugely increasing the competition.

even though not explicitly, i have already answered your question.

you should pass the transaction, as you should be in a neutral position.

edit: to clarify, payment providers/processors nowadays are a core utility function in our society. imo this is not something you can consider a regular private business.

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

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go further and remove the "lawful" from that. If you pay me $50 it shouldn't matter to the payment processor whether I gave you a painting or a blow job in return.

if the payment processor knew the transaction was for a contract killing but processed it anyway, would they not be facilitating a crime (“aiding and abetting”)? are you saying we should specifically exempt payment processors from being held responsible for crimes that the rest of us — or any other business — could be found guilty of when performing the same functions? or are you suggesting something more broad: that…

This ignores all the justifications that the other commenters have laid out.

You are not "aiding and abetting" by handling the money. There's already a well-established body of law outlining who is and is not culpable for a crime. We don't need to debate it from first principles here.

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

#374

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.

How could a website function with cash payments at all?

The website could hold it in escrow while they wait for your cash? It isn't hard actually, just a couple more steps. I mean not everyone needs 2 day Amazon shipping.

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

#375

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 primary benefit of cashless is pretty much just the ability to be lazy. By this logic, the primary benefit of just about every technological development in human history is the ability to be lazy. The wheel is just a crutch for those too lazy to drag their loads on sleds. The downsides of a cashless marketplace are indisputable, but “laziness” is a reductive view of the upsides.

> “laziness” is a reductive view of the upsides.

They're obviously not clear enough to elaborate upon, although there's room for a discussion about wheels. A cashless society saves almost no effort.

The reason I support government fiat crypto is because banks get a free ride, holding customer deposits and playing with them, but giving nothing in return. But I also think that if you have a physical store that sells to the general public, you should be required to accept cash. Government crypto is still an account (or any number of accounts.) The physical token is cash.

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

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36117704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36117435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36117805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36116663 Then there are the people defending the steps to the cashless society because those steps happened to be on people they didn't like: canadian truckers and pornhub. I recall one explicit comment I can't find now so I am willing to believ…

Those are people arguing for cash-less society.

> No one is arguing for a cash-only society.

My statement was about the opposite, i.e. co-existence rather than exclusion :)

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

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take this opportunity to advocate for 'payment network neutrality' - given their importance in the economy, I agree payment processors should be required to process all lawful transactions, by law. We should require this of any national payments processor in the US at the federal level - or state, I'm looking at you, CA and NY.

I personally feel if the business is legal, then CC issuers should have to process it. If they want to be the top 3 or 4 gate keepers, they absolutely need to be completely neutral as long as the payment is legal.

While I understand that, how do you square that with one category of business causing way more chargebacks than average?

Do they just have to eat it? Or can they charge higher fees to those merchants? If the latter they could quickly use that to discriminate. $100/tx fee would kill most any normal business.

Perhaps the problem is the government doesn’t provide a non-cash lowest common denominator, so people are basically forced to use Visa/MC?

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

#378
In the US it is catching on, particularly outside of the population dense centers of cities. You see signs now charging surcharges on card payments to cover the processing fees, thus disincentivizing card payments.

Personally I do everything in my day to day life with cash. I don't want to use a card, ever, if I can avoid it.

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

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you visit Georgia (the country, not the state), they have a cool system for cash payments to websites. You go on the website, order your stuff. When the normal payment screen that comes up, instead of Mastercard or visa, you choose "Cash". You'll then be sent a text message with a number (or the number appears on the screen if you don't have a phone). You go to any ATM anywhere in the country, put that number into…

Do you have an account with the ATM provider? I'm wondering how these payment providers are in compliance with KYC and KYT regulatuons.

No - you don't give your identity to the ATM, or to the website. Which is lucky, because Georgia doesn't even have a good record of every citizen's name....

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

#380
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because arresting people requires evidence and due process, which is work.

If you don’t have evidence or due process, then you don’t know it’s for human trafficking.

And yet, people know things all the time without evidence and due process.
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