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Sweden leads the race to become cashless society

theguardian.com

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Re: Sweden leads the race to become cashless society

#71

Post by bjornsing »

miend wrote: post #45
bjornsing wrote: post #2

The busses have refused cash for years now, mostly for security reasons. But the other day one of my favorite cafés also declined the kingly payment method. A good sign indeed. :) A perhaps even better one is that one of the lunch places I go to no-longer requires my pin code when I pay by card. :D Progress! :)

It sounds downright Orwellian. The government, its banks, payment processors all having the ability to instantly lock you out of the economy and watch your every transaction, leaving you totally out of options should you get on their bad side? That just sounds like another building block in the surveillance Panopticon, psychological assurance that you'll never become dissentious because your continued existence in th…

> The erosion of the will to dissent, and the power of the individual over their own lives

We Swedes are way past that. We live as humble subjects of our government, cuddled from cradle to grave, bowing to their authority much as we once bowed to the king. :P

But every four years the people is abolished and the government choses a new one, so it's still a democracy! ;P

Re: Sweden leads the race to become cashless society

#72

Post by bjornsing »

bjornsing wrote: post #71
miend wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds downright Orwellian. The government, its banks, payment processors all having the ability to instantly lock you out of the economy and watch your every transaction, leaving you totally out of options should you get on their bad side? That just sounds like another building block in the surveillance Panopticon, psychological assurance that you'll never become dissentious because your continued existence in th…

> The erosion of the will to dissent, and the power of the individual over their own lives We Swedes are way past that. We live as humble subjects of our government, cuddled from cradle to grave, bowing to their authority much as we once bowed to the king. :P But every four years the people is abolished and the government choses a new one, so it's still a democracy! ;P

I'm only half joking here, and I'm definitely not saying you're wrong. Just trying to explain why we Swedes probably don't think about the cashless society in the same way as americans do.

And by the way, most of my friends would probably describe me as "a borderline libertarian" (by Swedish standards), "fixated" on individual liberties and similar.

Re: Sweden leads the race to become cashless society

#73

Post by mrec »

andres_kytt wrote: post #65
mrec wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think GP's point re cash was just that cash transactions are typically anonymous. Obviously you can get around that by e.g. matching up till receipts against video surveillance and facial recognition tech, but I'm not aware that that happens routinely, so in practice you probably have a fair degree of privacy.

Cash transactions are anonymous only if most transactions are cash. I take x eur from the bank and give them to you. You put x eur to the bank. That's linkable. And the people sign up to all sorts of savings cards en masse making their transactions at the till completely traceable. It is not about what happens routinely, it is about what can happen. Banks don't give a damn about your transaction history as long as yo…

You're right, it's partially linkable, but only partially. If I take out cash from the bank and buy something in a shop, it'll get mixed in with all the cash from everybody else buying things there (which obscures the exact purchase) and for smaller denominations there's a nonzero chance that they might get given out again in change before being banked (which makes it hard to prove any purchase). Until tills start scanning and reporting banknote numbers there's still far more anonymity than you get with digital.

Savings cards I wouldn't touch with a bargepole; I don't imagine anyone who gives two hoots about privacy would.

Re: Sweden leads the race to become cashless society

#74

Post by mike-cardwell »

bogomipz wrote: post #46
ginko wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds horrifying.

How long before health insurance companies are able to track your diet or habits and adjust your premiums accordingly. I'm picturing a text message from the insurance company that tells me I've gone over my donut allowance for the month.

"health insurance company" - What sort of backwards society is this?
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