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In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

thehub.ca

751–760 of 849 posts

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#751
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's fundamentally just handing over a bit of paper. No, it's handing over bits of paper at the particular physical location of the person or entity you are paying . For some transactions, like paying for your food at a restaurant, that's no problem because you're there anyway. For other transactions, like paying monthly bills, it is a problem.

Nah because banks exist and can make digital transactions when you give them cash. Literally, if you were standing next to me, you can give me 10 quid and I can send someone else that ten quid. You have paid them ten quid using cash, reasonably anonymously in a way that cannot be easily blocked or censored as long as cash exists. This becomes far, far less convenient or feasible if we only have barter and now you nee…

> banks exist and can make digital transactions when you give them cash.

And as soon as I use a bank for this, I am no longer protected against law enforcement preventing me from paying my bills and supporting myself, which was supposed to be the whole point of using cash in the first place. Law enforcement can block banks from making digital transactions on my behalf just as easily as they can freeze my accounts at those same banks.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#752

Since I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere in the comments so far, it's worth noting that the author has clear political allegiances. From the author's bio near the bottom of the article: > Howard Anglin is a post-graduate researcher at Oxford University. He was previously Deputy Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Principal Secretary to the Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, and a lawyer in New York, L…

> partially raised by Nazis Any evidence for this claim?

I remembered reading this in the Globe and Mail article about the leaked GiveSendGo list of donors, but it seems I was wrong. I'm sorry for not checking my sources when posting this. I'm not sure why I can't edit the original message.

I could confirm however that the movement including its leaders had ties with neo-Nazi groups and that Nazi flags were flown in the convoy.

Here's the Wikipedia article with more than enough sources to support those claims: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest?wprov=sf...

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#753
post #725
post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I assume the arsonists might be from any population, not excluding the truckers. I think the facts of the matter don't support the claim that "protestors attempted to burn down an apartment complex." Looking at the photos of the arsonists, I see one is ear-wearing a mask. Having a mask at all seems out of character for the trucker-protestors given other photojournalism. Maybe it was a disguise? Why would anyone t…

In fact, arson attempts are so common in Ottawa that you could probably make the argument that the convoy was preventing arson from occurring. /s The news reported that someone in the building had a confrontation with some of the protesters that day, and then there is video of someone trying to burn the building down. I wonder if it could be related. The facts of the matter are that there is no linkage to the trucker…

> I'm really sick of people from all over the internet telling the people who actually live in Ottawa that the protests have been peaceful.

Your sickness is regrettable. It’s such a shame not everyone is on board with your pity-train of first world problems. Are you so out of touch that you even know what not-peace is?

An epistemologically closed assertion without evidence deserves pushback. I think you might agree with that given your lengthy response that barely addresses the claim at hand.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#754
post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what makes you think it's retroactive in the act. The government has also said it's not going to be applied retroactively. https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/what-ottawa-can-do-n...

Except most mainstream news said that the frozen accounts were made for donations made retro-actively before the Emergency Act. This is a matter of public notoriety as this point.

The media may have reported what the person said / claimed happened. What actually happened may have been different.

> However, Jacques said some bank account holders may still be subject to other court orders freezing their assets.

> The province of Ontario won an order on Feb. 10 that froze the distribution of funds raised through the American online funding platform, GiveSendGo. And on Feb. 17 a group of Ottawa citizens, businesses, and employees who are suing key organizers of the so-called Freedom Convoy 2022 won a sweeping order to preserve their ability to recover damages.

[…]

> The emergency financial orders took effect on Feb. 15, and Jacques made clear it has no retroactive effect, so that anyone who donated to crowdfunding platforms prior to Feb. 15 should not be captured by the order, she said.

* https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ts/politics/federal/2022...

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protesters blocked multiple international borders between Canada and the US, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars per day ($300 million/day for the Windsor/Detroit crossing alone). There is no "civil liberty" that protects the right to blockade an international border, just as there is no civil liberty to park a convoy of trucks in someone's neighbourhood and then stay there indefinitely. I have family who li…

The correct solution to Illegal behavior in a healthy democracy is to arrest someone and try them in court. We shouldn't be denying that to to anybody no matter how wrong they are.

[deleted]

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#756
post #681
post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can continue to protest, but you can't be breaking the laws forever. One of the reasons the right to protest is a fundamental one is because laws are made by people, for people, in the service of the public good and well-being of the citizens. If the people protest against the laws then that's their right, the people and their will is above the law, the law is not above the people's will as a whole. This is alm…

> If the people protest against the laws then that's their right, the people and their will is above the law, the law is not above the people's will as a whole. It's not the people's will as a whole though. It's a tiny minority of people that are protesting.

That's arguably true, though I'm also skeptical of any official numbers. The protests are not homogeneous at all: on one hand you have seemingly long convoys that are made up of small number of people, there are also very dense on-foot protests, it's somewhat hard to make an accurate estimation.

Still, making a statement doesn't require a majority.Usually if 0.5%-1% or more of the population starts protesting, the governing body responds, (or at least it should imo, having potentially more than 2-3% of the population actively involved in a political manner it's not a good sign: politicians don't want people too closely involved). This however vastly depends on the country, the culture, the people.Protests are also not accurate representations of the electorate.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#757
post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if I claim that they can’t use physical force because they (the government) didn’t have the popular support and risk facing overwhelming violence escalation, what is your response to that? I'm not sure I'm following 100% your question, but I think you mean what if the government is so unpopular that the country is close to a revolution from its citizens? This doesn't really makes sense to me in a liberal democracy…

> I'm not sure I'm following 100% your question, but I think you mean what if the government is so unpopular that the country is close to a revolution from its citizens? I meant that they didn’t have the popular support to shut down the protest (I was not talking about the general popular support to the government as a whole, but just this specific issue). In the previous post, you were assuming that the protest does…

> you were assuming that the protest does not have popular support and I wonder if that assumption is correct.

Seems to be a valid assumption.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/two-thirds-of-canadia...

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#758
post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a disingenuous argument.If you want to pay for software or digital goods you already probably have or want a bank account, a paypal or something.You're already in the ecosystem and nobody forces you to use cash everywhere.By the way >it is Let's do the opposite example now: Do you >need People want to think about cash/cashless in terms of black and white, yes or no.I used to be pro-cashless and certainly I am…

My point was that a larger and larger proportion of the things we buy we buy over the internet: it is something like 25% of all consumer purchasing now. Those transactions are cashless. Some types of goods you can only buy over the internet, like software, and this trend will only continue. I think MoneyGram/Western Union are a great counterpoint, but while anonymous, I consider that more similar to cashless than cas…

I agree, the key point here is the dangers we potentially face if we forcefully remove cash as an option of payment.We should strive to at least keep it an option where possible, and I would base this mainly on the privacy aspect(and secondarily maybe security).

Cashless is great as a convenience option, or when there are time sensitive factors.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#759

> The government’s action is troubling enough, but what should really disturb us is the ease and invisibility with which it is being done. This is such a great point. I'm not sure why it needs to be made over and over again, but it seems that's the only way it doesn't get buried. Let's play a game. I will be the institution, you will be the person. You will get ability to record me with your cellphone and post stuff…

You forgot the part that as an individual I am practically invisible to the institution, and it would take a mob of mes to attract Sauron's eye.

Do you mean to suggest that if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear?

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#760
post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very succinctly put. The amount of people who are hell bent on staying in the past and refusing any sort of progress out of ( exaggerated, IMHO) cynical fear and slippery slope fallacies is.. concerning to say the least. Instead of those people using their concerns to help shape the narrative and regulations to fight against what they don't want, they play toddlers and simply refuse to advance. Cashless is so much mo…

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Anything that can be abused, will be abused. This is not cynical, this is just how it is. Progress is great, but cashless is not progress.

Anything involving authorization introduces the possibility of denial.
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