To be fair, apart from the privacy aspects, they’ve chosen some of the worst arguments against a full cashless society. Seriously, piggy banks and birthday cards?
Normal life. As much as people want to deny it, it’s actually really important.
I think it’s easier for us, as adults, to dismiss those things, but they bring kids joy and an opportunity to learn about the value of money and saving.
God how we would suffer without piggy banks or garage sales.
I though this whole post was sarcasm until I saw people’s comments taking it seriously. Thanks for bringing sanity to this thread.
Also have any of you heard of instant transfers or crypto currency? So cringe.
And giftcards will still exist, still traceable though.
unfortunately. god they suck so much. they’re like money, but worse in every way.
Why do garage sales have to go away, I just went to one and used zelle to send the guy money.
I was scratching my head with that one too. HOAs are doing a better job at killing the garage sale.
HOAs only control 25-27% of housing in the US. A number that should be zero, but not enough to kill off all garage sales, by any stretch.
I use my paypal card reader! Both when holding garage sales and when visiting, it’s pretty normal and a lot of people use it without blinking.
If you pearl-clutching Christians fearful of change don’t want a cashless society, maybe stop pouring all your support behind the political powers that want to see giant megacorporations flourish and crush out small businesses. The people who want to control your rmoney are not the banks nearly as much as the Walmart down the street that can now take credit card payments simply by glancing at the store as you pass.
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Why are you like this though
Get prepaid cards then
Prepaid cards are neither gratis nor anonymous in some countries.
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No one is pushing for a “cashless society” like this post describes. It’s fear mongering.
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There is a massive difference between a business being cashless and a government enforced “cashless society” like this post describes.
Spain, Belgium, and France have banned cash transactions above a threshhold (e.g. €3k) at least 5 years ago already. Cannot pay tax using cash in Belgium. Think about that for a minute.
New recent law in Belgium: all businesses (incl. self-employed workers and even landlords renting out property) MUST accept electronic payment. Try doing that without using a bank.
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- I completely disagree that if a majority of businesses went cashless that would mean the government has no choice but to be cashless.
- I never said it “could NEVER happen.”
- What do you mean it “DID happen,” it hasn’t.
- Ad hominem gets you nowhere.
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26% in a recent poll:
A Mastodon poll with 210 responses is hardly representative.
Why do you think 210 is statistically insignificant? Is there a reason why the central limit theorem does not apply in this case?
If you’re more fixated on the samples coming from Mastodon, can you explain why you might expect cashless proponents to be even fewer in populations outside of Mastodon? IMO, a Mastodon-using population is more likely to embrace individual rights and condemn imbalances of power that favor giant corporations like banks. I believe if the same survey is carried out outside of Mastodon, the 26% will be even bigger, if different.
The same reason someone might think Linux is a wildly popular choice of OS on Lemmy. These communities are very niche.
Mastodon is not niche. Mastodon is a diverse community of nerds and low tech people, artistic brains and analytical brains, white collar workers and blue collar workers. A substantial portion of Mastodon is from Reddit refugees. Reddit is no more niche than Facebook.
The greater Mastodon venue who that poll reached lacks right wing conservatives, who tend to stay in their bubble of extremist networks. That does not make Mastodon “niche”. Running the same survey on a right wing Mastodon node might be interesting, but we can see from the linked poll that political affiliation is generally orthoganol on this issue.
In a cash based society they might make us nail coins to our body with special screws only the government can undo.
You, if digital transactions came before cash.
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Whoever wrote this has very little imagination. Most of this is already not true
This is some boomer facebook shit.
I have a Paypal credit card reader I keep with me because I do commissioned work on the side, it’s the size of a stick of gum, I can take a payment anywhere, I’ve paid friends for dinner or other things with a quick tap and use it at garage sales.
Not saying I WANT a cashless society, nor do I think anyone is seriously pushing this issue because if you did away with cash people will come up with something to use as cash the very same day. But I do think this weird image/article is extremely 1-dimensional and likely published in some Christian magazine to reinforce the right-wing fear that anything will ever change at all.
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What would you do if (insert hypothetical)? Oh okay. Well what would you do (insert more far fetched hypothetical).
Repeat.
But fine I’ll bite the bait. You can’t de facto bar bartering, as a significant amount if b2b is effectively bartering. Now if only corpos can do it, then I’d say we should really look into that socialist democracy stuff.
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I dunno if you live in the US, but if you do, you’re already required to pay taxes on the goods you exchange. So literally nothing would change wrt this cashless society thing because the law is already there, and you’re already not paying your taxes, and it has nothing to do with cash because in a barter you’re not exchanging cash.
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For people who think that Crypto will solve these issues, it won’t. In a mass-adoption scenario, a few coins will be accepted as currency while the rest remain mostly useless for commerce. Those orgs behind those coins and their exchange platforms will then become just like the banks of old. Any attempt at democratizing Crypto is illusory, it’s a fantasy.
“Crypto will fix that!”
By having a publicly visible ledger of all transactions ever recorded???
Monero would be the exception
For people who think that Crypto will solve these issues, it won’t. In a mass-adoption scenario, a few coins will be accepted as currency while the rest remain mostly useless for commerce.
That argument is entirely dependent on what the “few coins” hypothetically turn out to be. For example, regarding privacy, Monero is private by design.
Those orgs behind those coins and their exchange platforms will then become just like the banks of old. Any attempt at democratizing Crypto is illusory, it’s a fantasy.
Are you arguing that it is inevitable that exchanges, or some other entity, will inevitably gain majority control of the networks of decentralized currencies?
No government would ever allow coins like Monero to become main forms of currency. The potential for abuse and tax evasion is just too high. They would sooner ban them outright. No legitimate business would accept them then.
Accepting random alt coins would also come with the expense of having to track them and their wallets separately, exchange costs, volatility, etc, so over time just a few will become generally accepted by businesses.
And yes, the most likely consequence of long-term crypto usage is that users will centralize into a few trusted platforms who will get the Lion’s share of tokens and power.
No government would ever allow coins like Monero to become main forms of currency.
It depends on what you mean by “allow” and “main form of currency”. Afaik, in the US (and the rest of the west), at least, there are no laws regarding what form the medium of exchange should take for the exchange of goods and services. The dollar is simply the standard currency to make payments to the government. For example:
United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts. [31 U.S. Code § 5103 (archive)]
Accepting random alt coins would also come with the expense of having to track them and their wallets separately, exchange costs, volatility, etc, so over time just a few will become generally accepted by businesses.
Is that just a statement of fact, or is that supposed to be an argument against Monero? I’m not sure what the point of that statement is. In any case, I don’t see any issue with that outcome — it would simply be a market decision.
And yes, the most likely consequence of long-term crypto usage is that users will centralize into a few trusted platforms who will get the Lion’s share of tokens and power.
I’d say that this is still TBD, but yes centralized control is a concern, as it would break the current designs of cryptocurrencies (as far as I currently understand their designs, that is). Though, note that there is a difference between central ownership of coins in circulation, and central ownership of the network (of course depending on the design of the network — I feel that proof of stake would be vulnerable to this).
Feel the same way about Linux tbh
Probably, but at least you can just copy-paste your home folder across most distros as long as they’re similar enough. Also your distro isn’t quite as important as your personal finances lol. Even in the case of potential security issues, most people would rather have their PC hacked into than their bank acct.
False dichotomy. Many, even most, of the examples given here could be accomplished in a cashless society (not that I’m actually advocating for one, but this is just factually incorrect).
Grandma slipped me a secret credit chip connected to an illegal bank account in Panama, with $5 in it. You want a soda or something?
How would you accomplish these things without cash?
I’m not sure how you would accomplish a secret credit chip, with or without cash, sorry.
Assuming we’re talking about granny slipping her grandchild a few bucks though, what’s stopping her? Nobody’s proposing a system where under 18s are cut out of the economy. Everybody gets a bank account the moment they learn to crawl. Granny just sends the money to her favourite grandkid of the month.
None of this is hypothetical BTW, before you start trying to come up with scenarios why this doesn’t work. This is literally the system in Norway.
Christmas could be accomplished via a spreadsheet too. Just have a big table where the labels on each axis are all the people, and you can enter the values for what gift each gave to the other. Reveal the squares in random order with a timer.
It’s functionally equivalent! It’s how we do Christmas in Norway, so there’s literally no reason it can’t work.
It’s not like kids will be cut out of the Holiday system. We can have special user accounts, maybe with read-only access to the spreadsheet.
It’s functionally isomorphic guys. It’s a proved model and we’re just wasting time holding off the implementation. Norway bro.
Well you can’t give someone cash if there is no cash.
Obviously nanna can transfer money to the kids.
The real question is what is the difference?
My kids have an account with an index fund. When I log in there’s a qr code you can scan which takes you to a payment gateway.
If the children are young enough, nanna can transfer money to some account the parents control. If the parents are fine, that’s fine. However, what if the parents are addicts (drugs, gambling, whatever)? Or what if they are so deep in debt that every cent on their accounts immediately gets turned to whoever the owe to? In that case the kid can’t even buy themselves lunch on their own.
I don’t think this is a great argument for the prevalence of cash?
What about kids who’s nannas don’t give them money?
Better to build a society that identifies kids as risk like this rather than prattling on about cash and hoping for the best.
Young children can not create a bank account so they can not get money transferred. In case their parents set up a bank account, the parents will have access to that money and see any transactions.
Now you are probably a good person who would not steal money from your children. However some parents are not good people.
There are also a lot of cases where parents don’t want their children to have things they need, like soap or tampons. Doubt much has changed about that from the time I was a child. It would be a lot harder for children to access things like that if no one can slip them some secret money.Can’t nanna slip them a gift card for the grocery store?
That way nanna would need to know that the children are struggling with this. A lot of children wouldn’t tell from the shame and since they are doing something ‘forbidden’. I know I wouldn’t have told my grandma.
I’m not really following you. I thought nanna was secretly giving a kid money so they could buy that stuff. If she didn’t know the kid needed a secret Toiletries fund, why would she give cash in secret? She would just transfer the money.
I am sympathetic to what sounds like a tough childhood with shit parents. I just don’t think it’s a good argument for prevalent use of cash.
I’d rather invest efforts in making sure kids aren’t neglected in this way.
If their grandma was anything like mine, she didn’t know I wanted a secret stash of money for X or Y, what she knew was that my parents unfairly controlled and removed money from my account, which since they’re my parents was legal so she couldn’t call the cops or something, and she knew that all she could do was her part to help by slipping me a $20 and saying “don’t tell your mother.”
Sure, it’s not the end of the world, kids get abused all the time worse than that and survive. Still lame though.
Well one happens while grandma is hugging the kid. It involves perceiving and interacting with a physical object, which uses parts of the brain that are hundreds of millions of years older than the parts you’re using when you see a notification on your phone.
Also there’s the fact of the secrecy, which isn’t there when all transfers are recorded for possible analysis later.
Quite a bit is different actually.
I’m not really hearing a compelling argument sorry.
My parents relationship with my kids runs far deeper than the act of handing over cash.
Creating a QR code and scanning involves the same interaction though.
Yes, I fondly remember growing up smelling QR codes that my grandma handed me before getting on my plane flight, I’ll always have the memory of hugging her and scanning the QR code from her phone that she can definitely figure out.
Which of course is a much better memory than a pinch on the cheek and being given $50 in cash for your flight.
I feel like physically affection is only bought with money in your house. Bribe for hugs? I dunno.
Most of these things would be solved with payment apps like Venno or CashApp.
You can also get pre-paid cards to give to homeless people on the street, or use a “garage sale” app that has digital payment options like OfferUp to sell your unwanted crap.
I also wouldn’t want the banks to have full control, but I know there are already solutions to most of the problems listed in the image. The only one that seems accurate is the domestic violence one.
Possibly with the exception of the domestic violence example, the examples that directly reference ‘cash’ make the least sense. Of course you can’t give cash to your grandchildren, there’s no more cash!
When I was a kid my parents controlled my account and would take money out of it sometimes, sometimes to punish me for this reason or that (staying up late sneaking SNL back when it was good, for instance.) What they didn’t control is the cash they didn’t see my grandparents slip me on my birthday, and therefore they couldn’t steal that. Sure “well they shouldn’t have done that in the first place,” but they did, or “you shouldn’t have disobeyed your parents,” ok whatever Mom, but I’m thankful I had my secret stash.
Savvy grandparents transfer BTC to their grandkid’s cold wallet
XMR*
I live in New York City. The current way to pay for buses and subways is with a Metrocard. You can buy them at some stores and check cashing places, or at most subway stations. You can pay with cash or a card. Now, at great cost, they are introducing a ‘better’ system where you pay for your rides with a credit card or smart device. They are planning on getting completely rid of the Metrocards. Soon, they will be able to trace anyone’s movements.
trace anyone’s movements
There’s literally a GPS enabled mind control device in almost everyone’s pocket.
This same lame comment gets posted on every fucking internet post about Privacy. Stop it.
Not everyone uses a compromised phone with the GPS turned on all the time. Plenty of us put in effort to mitigate cell phone tracking, and anyone can leave their phone at home to completely eliminate tracking where they go.
FYI there are a number of privacy-focused Android distributions, and lots of options on Apple iOS to disable what can track you. Stop being complacent and protect your own privacy instead of hand-waving away the entire premise of Privacy.
If your cell phone is turned on, the phone company knows where you are. This fact is why your GPS doesn’t take 5 minutes to show your location every time you turn on your phone. The OS gets the cell towers to identify where you are and combines that with GPS to get a quicker lock and more accurate location.
The most secure Android OS cannot turn that off. If you transmit or receive data to a cell phone network, your location is known.
Sure, there’s no way around that, even dumb phones are triangulated by default and that data is sold.
But doing just that is better than being triangulated AND leaking your GPS data to every Tom Dick and Harry that asks your phone.
EDIT: Sorry, I am idiot. What I described IS triangulation.
Reeeeeee! Phones. Are. Not. Triangulated.Most cell towers use phased antenna array, so they know relative direction all the time. And distance can be estimated from latency and signal strength.
Two cell towers allow to get precise location from angles. Angles are derived from phase differences on elements of array and can’t be manipulated like latency or signal strength.
Two cell towers allow to get precise location from angles.
But using two cell towers and angles would literally be triangulation…
2=3?
Interesting, I stand corrected. Thanks for informing me.
Sorry, I am idiot. What I described IS triangulation. Alternative with distances is trilateration.
No that’s not very accurate. Cell phone tower triangulation only gives a rough approximation of location, and GPS is definitely able to be disabled by the software. I know a bit about these things as someone who has compiled their own android ROM from open source. I’ve been working on this stuff for more than a decade now.
Regardless of all of the above, anyone can turn off their cell phone or choose to not carry it to eliminate the ability for that cell phone to provide location data on them. This alone negates all the stupid “gotcha” comments about trying to preserve one’s privacy while owning a smartphone. So we are back to my first comment on this topic, with the point of STOP IT.
Cell phone tower triangulation only gives a rough approximation of location
That’s why I said they send that to allow the phone’s GPS to get a lock quicker and more accurate. All cell phone towers have GPS. Agps means the tower sends its GPS constellation to the phone so it doesn’t take 5 minutes to lock.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS
So yes, even with GPS disabled, the phone company has a rough idea where you are.
If you are in the city on high band 5g, that location is known within 15 to 600 meters.
The GPS thing is different. The phone downloads the satellite positions from the net instead of having to receive the same data, very slowly, from the satellites themselves.
No, that’s not quite how GPS works. The satelites are constantly sending a signal, the GPS receiver is trying to pick up at least two satelites, and it computes your location off of the phase shift and whatnot of those constantly-broadcasting signals.
That’s why GPS still works in airplane mode.
As I said, cell towers send information so that GPS can work better. I didn’t say that GPS needs cell towers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS
The tower has its own GPS antenna. The cell tower knows approximately where you are.
You’re still misspeaking and implying the data is necessary. It is not. At all. Period.
How do you think Garmins and the like work when they have NO external data connection? They don’t magically take way longer to position…
GPS receiver is trying to pick up at least two satelites
Four. GPS solves position in 4-dimensional space.
3 satellites for 2 dimensional space, 4 satellites gives you height as well (3 dimensional).
your wristwatch gives you your fourth dimension ;-)
No, more is preferred, but the way the signals are designed, some positioning slowly works with only two satellites.
Like old phones. Remember when GPS was slow and always a few meters off? Part of that was they were bad at or could not acquire more than two signals.
Yes, but the receiver need the position of the satellites to compute its own position. That data is transferred very slowly, so if you can download it through the internet, then you only need the identifiers of the satellites to immediately compute.
Yes, Android (and iOS) can turn that off: torn off mobile network or don’t have a mobile phone provider (SIM).
“if you send or receive data”
You could use WiFi only
You only know what you’re told. There’s all kinds of space inside your phone for components with capabilities you know nothing about.
meanwhile, you don’t know anything.
What good is knowing something made up?
meanwhile, that’s how you live your life.
Cautiously.
Yes but its not required to get around, airplane mode, and not everyone has their cell service tied to their name, etc.
Yeah and there’s a reason you can’t drive unregistered and that reason has nothing to do with bad drivers.
Take off the tinfoil hat, NYC is not planning to get rid of metrocards. The credit card payment ability is just a convenience feature to get more people riding transit.
I mean, my tinfoil hat is on for the same reason - I haven’t been arsed using Transport for London’s Oyster card because there’s a cost cap placed on all travel paid for by one single card. I suppose my bank has my details already so it’d better that than having another party with my data… and another card to lose, more likely.
Bruh what you can buy omny cards for cash in stores.
You can buy preloaded credit cards with cash from convenience stores. It’s as trackable as your MetroCard.
I used my phone to tap and pay back in December '21. Not a new thing.
Call it what it really is - a backdoor registry.
Guns, books, contraceptives… whatever an oppressive government may be interested in having a registry of, they have one by default once anonymous payments are destroyed.
Guns, books and contraceptives. Great list.
You forgot 3d printers.
Yeah. Recent court records suggested the feds do (or did at one point) request purchase records of 3D printers. So those probably are on a list.
Conservatives making things up and getting mad about it
Sir this is a privacy sub, keep your political tribalism to the political communities.
Privacy famously being a non-political topic.
It doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be. When a specific political entity makes anti-privacy plans, then it’s different ofc, but don’t bring politics into non-political posts.
This post is political. It is about how an aspect of society is organized and its effects. This is literally what politics are about.
You’re right to a point. It is somewhat political in nature, but not in the my party vs your party kind of way.
Who said anything about a party, conservatism is an ideology
Found you downvoted. As if there aren’t conservative Democrats. As if conservative Democrats don’t fill the DNC leadership positions 🤷♂️
huh? anyone can dislike going cashless, since when do conservatives care about domestic abuse victims for example? conservatives generally perpetrate domestic abuse!
This domestic abuse thing sounds to me like a “pull up yourself by the bootstrap” situation kind of myth. Are there women who can stash thousands away to prepare to flee, but cannot somehow have a bank account? That sounds so unrealistic, it seems to me more of an excuse to tell abused people they are just “not trying hard enough”.
Are there women who can stash thousands away to prepare to flee, but cannot somehow have a SECRET bank account?
^ fixed your question - an important word was missing. And now to answer it, in some countries it is impossible to open a bank account without your spouse knowing about it. If you are married, your spouse must cosign.
Yes. This only makes me think you’ve not had much experience with DV victims. Which, if true, isn’t your fault.
Control is one of the big parts of DV. Take away their ability to get away.
indeed. This was recently surveyed in fact:
well they can’t say the parts they’re actually angry about so we get this bullshit roll.
it’s very much like racism, they won’t come out and say they don’t like people of color, they’ll simply come up with a dozen ways to discriminate against them but say it’s personal freedom, etc.
they’re angry about not being able to pay people under the table, about not being able to skim the petty cash etc.
downvoters, debate, show me I’m wrong lol
… but what if I was in a place without mobile phone reception and nanna wanted to buy a toy from a homeless person having a garage sale to give to my kid?!
See… you just haven’t thought this whole cashless thing through.
I love how in a PRIVACY Lemmy community there are people who actually, unironically argue for a dystopian cashless society.
We’re all fucked, aren’t we?
No one is arguing for a cashless society though?
That’s not an argument for a cashless society.
That comment is implying that the statements made in the post are incorrect, not that a cashless society is desirable.
I’m sure someone, somewhere is. The bigger problem is that society seems to be moving in that direction without first having a serious debate about whether it’s a good idea.
I take a hard line and hold the position that, if you’re in business, you should be required to accept legal tender (maybe only up to a threshold where Know Your Customer laws kick in). There’s a strong social value in there being spaces for unmonitored transactions.
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Sweden is a mostly cashless society. Let me try to respond to those points
-
In case of domestic violence, you go to the police.
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You can still give individual people money with things like Swish. Yes, even “homeless” people have swish and they use it. Kids of all ages can have swish.
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It costs 0(for individuals) or 10-30 cents(for companies) to transact on swish and minimum transaction is basically 10cents(1sek).
There are privacy issues and it is kinda controlled by banks. Maybe eventually things like digital euro can improve on that in the future. You can have an anonymous digital payment system with near 0 fees, it is just that the governments arent incentivized to do it. Thats where cryptocurrency could fit, if it wasnt a pump and dump, to the moon hellhole.
Let me try to respond back:
- Depending on your situation, your identity, your society, you cannot always rely on the police helping you. There are lots of documented cases of discrimination (e.g. racism) at police institutions in all kinds of regions across the globe. The companies probably don’t want to delete the data any time soon, so there is a chance that this data persists for decades. What if your country chances and starts discriminating or harassing whatever group you belong to? Can you guarantee that your government/society won’t flip the switch on any group of society within their lifetime? Can you guarantee that nobody ever wants to visit a country which their group will be discriminated or persecuted?
- If the homeless person does not own a smartphone, how do they receive money on their Swish account, yet create a swish account? How does a person without documents create a swish account?
- In your case, Swish seems to be a digital gatekeeper. What prevents them from going rogue, increasing prices or discriminating people? I recommended reading Jaron Lanier’s Gadget for understanding the power of digital monopolies.
If the first point does not convince you, here are 2 examples:
- gay dating apps: It repeatedly happened that information from gay dating apps were leaked, sold or extorted to bad governments. Those governments discriminated or persecuted, in some cases killed people just for being homosexual. Chances are high that a gay person has some digital traces to that, e.g. in Swish. Cashless puts them even more at risk in countries like Egypt. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/apr/03/jailed-for-using-grindr-homosexuality-in-egypt
- In the 1930s, a lot of Jews in Europe were identified through state documents which (unnecessarily) mentioned their religion. In some locations, brave people protected them by destroying, hiding or faking state documents.
In other words: If your society changes, any data that exists may be turned against you, even costing your life and the lives of your closest people. Avoiding to have this data saves lives and protects minorities.
If your society changes
This is why I know that I’ll end up on a list if things go as poorly as I expect in the USA during my lifetime.
Swish is partly owned by the Central Bank of Sweden(which is 100% state owned) so it is basically state owned. But as with the digital euro, the private banks play a big part and atm are needed in order to facilitate the digital transactions. This could change in the future.
Your points are societal points and not currency related points. You are right, there are significant issues with swish, you basically need to be a swedish citizen(have a “personal number”). A lot of things in Sweden are gatekeeped by needing a “personal number”. This is an obstacle even for other EU(Schengen) europeans.
Societies are built with the majority in mind. There are holes that need to be fixed. But the existence of holes does not mean that they cant be fixed.
As far as privacy is concerned, you are right, this is a big attack on privacy. But it doesnt have to be, it is just that the governments want it to be. Not because of some megalomaniacal genocidal plan but for tax and criminal issues. Could it be used for more nefarious plans in the future? Sure. You can always use a cryptocurrency like monero though.
What all can you purchase with monero? I don’t see a lot of shops around me accepting any crypto whatsoever.
What all can you purchase with monero?
Drugs and guns.
You can always use a cryptocurrency like monero though.
Just don’t assume it provides anonymity both now and in the future. Even if you follow recommended security practices, Monero can leak details that can help track you. And if you were using Monero when it started, it was far less secure then, and all those transactions can be analyzed now.
If our societies would be perfect (now and any time in the future), we would not need this discussion, maybe not even privacy at all. Though a lot of things are very good in our societies, I guess we will not live to see them becoming perfect, so I rather retain some caution, and privacy.
Speaking from going through it myself; in the USA, Police often don’t help you if you’re dealing with domestic violence/rape in a marriage. My ex’s military commander refused to help me too…
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so don’t get married. It’s your fault for perpetuating bronze age bullshit.
In the modern era a marriage isn’t really what it was in the past. You can get divorced if things don’t work out and there’s no “we must wait until marriage to have sex and then we must have children” rule for most people.
So marriage nowadays is really just either a celebration of love, or a practical move for tax or other reasons.
Domestic abusers however, ruin all that. But domestic abusers can ruin your shit even without de jure shared control of finances because they can still coerce you into giving bank auth details.
Yeah in a lot of western countries we now get the ick about all the women-as-chattel-property connotations it’s always had. Watch people scramble to re-invent the meaning of the father of the bride giving her away.
As far as I can tell, marriage is the ugliest and worst chapter of contract law, because that’s basically what a marriage is, it’s a contract. One that people tend to sign without reading or even realizing who all the named parties are. And the standard terms most people agree to aren’t all that great. “You can get divorced” yeah that process isn’t a garden trowel to the spleen, is it fellas?
If it didn’t already exist, and someone were to try to invent the modern concept of marriage from the ground up, we would drive them out to the middle of nowhere and leave them for dead.
Then your country hasn’t modernized its laws. In mine the law says that both partners have equal rights and responsibilities to each other.
My country is in the process of regressing its laws, in fact. I think they’re going to outlaw literacy next year.
Normally I’d ask if you’re American, but I suppose many countries nowadays are going down the same path
In case of domestic violence, you go to the police.
This was such an oddly specific “worry” that it kind of plays the hand of the target demographic as well as the intention of the snippet. Along with the weird bits about birthday cards and ice cream, it just screams propaganda for midwest Christian-leaning grandmothers and housewives.
Right-wing, conservative Christian housewives who hand-wring about everything ALL put away stashes of money to hide from their 1-dimensional husbands who are usually somewhere on the abusive spectrum. I lived much of my life out in the outskirts of cities where the rednecks nest and breed, there are some very predictable stereotypes out there. One of the most common talking points on the far-right Christian slice of America is the perpetual warning that the Anti-Christ is going to take control of all the money and bring the entire planet under his control, and he will enact a one-world currency, take away everyone’s cash and guns and then everyone will have to get some chip in their wrist and that will be the Mark of the Beast, blah blah blah, fear-mongering and superstition and mindless worry.
Nobody will ever take away physical money entirely because the moment you do, people will invent one. So if you don’t want unregulated Nuka Cola bottlecaps being traded for goods and services in your country, you need to maintain an official currency.
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I think the only one that doesn’t really hold up is 1. There’s a lot of coercive control tied up with domestic violence that would make it hard for a victim to call the police for help.
Having said that, in the UK you can open a bank account with a new company in a matter of minutes then transfer money to it and be out of the situation before any paperwork turns up showing what you did.
Many of our banks have specific provisions in place to help victims of domestic violence. Including one that’ll set you up with a safe account and an emergency fund that doesn’t need to be repaid. https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/tsb-launches-emergency-flee-fund-for-domestic-abuse-victims-how-are-other-banks-helping-arSND8h82lGJ
In case of domestic violence, you go to the police.
What a bizarre disconnect from reality. You have waaay too much confidence in police power (and assumptions about actionable evidence), capability, and motivation, and no idea about battered women living in fear of the next attack, which a restraining order does not necessarily stop, if you can get one, especially if the next attack is a bullet. A cop who checks on a battery victim will be told “that big bruise on my cheek is from falling down the stairs”.
Domestic violence victims need options. You’re advocating for taking options away. That’s fucked up.
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don’t worry, the politicians will never block themselves from receiving suitcases full of money
They don’t receive suitcases of money. Their wives law firms get steady business from a network of donors. Their kids get past the fancy school acceptance filters despite being block heads. They’re invited to speak at an overseas conference where they do one event and then 30 days of vacation. Their fake biographies of overcoming hardship get sold out and given out for free by their political party. They can trade stock with insider knowledge.
There famously were some cases in Germany, but yeah, they also did more stealth things, like book contracts for example.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/12/politics/menendez-gold-cash-what-matters/index.html
just saying - they actually, really do receive suitcases of money.
Not that I think society should be cashless but why couldn’t you donate to homeless people and do garage sales in a cashless society?
Pretty much everyone has a phone here, including beggars and homeless people. It’s a necessity these days.
My country is basically cashless (as in almost no one uses cash and quite a few stores don’t accept it at all) and we just send money with an app that almost everyone uses. It’s easier than cash, bank transfers, and cards. It’s also instant.
Hell, I have even gotten some money from my grandparents that way a few years ago.
It might be theoretically possible where there is cell service, but keep in mind that a lot of homeless people do not have and are unable to get bank accounts. De-banking can be and is used as a tool to control people generally. Being cashless might be benign if you are in a situation where the banks, financial apps, and governments can be trusted not to weaponize their absolute control over everyone’s money, but in many places they cannot.
What kinds of places have untrustworthy banks and are becoming cashless?
I was thinking of the US and Canada https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/10/05/more-americans-are-joining-the-cashless-economy/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-banking
Sure ok. If you don’t trust US and canadian banks your best bet is probably to go off grid and live in the wilderness. Good luck.
Lol, what? I guess Europe is wilderness then.
Yes, US Banks, famously the picture of honesty. If you know one thing about the US banks it’s how honest they truly are. If you know two things the other is probably the depression or the 2008 financial crisis, don’t worry about that though, they’re as trustworthy as the CIA which has definitely stopped all those nefarious things they did as soon as Alan Dulles died.
Not being from the US or Canada I don’t know the first thing about your banks or the CIA. That said, it just seems ridiculous to me that a bank would control you through the management of your money.
To you, because you don’t know the first thing about our banks, no offense. If you did you wouldn’t trust them either lol. It seems absolutely plausible they’d do it imo. They already do it with criminals to an extent, which could be argued as fair I suppose, but I don’t want to see that expand at the very least.
Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and Paypal famously colluded to block donations to wikileaks. That control was exercised at an international level.
I think I will instead promote keeping their power limited, such as by using cash
I guess almost any country has (some) untrustworthy banks. So whatever country is planning to go cashless, they will have both.
Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Spain. Banks in those places will freeze your account easily, like a doc on file expiring.
US banks are more trustworthy with your money than European banks, but US banks are less trustworthy with your data. Exceptionally, there is a pitfall where you can lose your money: dormancy. I recall a woman in California who had a safe deposit box that she did not access for a number of years. The bank declared it “dormant”, drilled it, and gave the property to the state’s unclaimed assets, who then auctioned off her stuff.
In a cashless society, everyone would have a bank account.
Nobody wants to cut off people from the economy. Whether you want a cashless society or not.
Nobody wants to cut off people from the economy
They do though.
You’re right, let’s switch to a cashless society, there’s no way someone like Trump could win again and decide to delist all his political enemies and of course “those dirty nwords and queers” to help his complete dictatorship style takeover of America. I mean, it’s not like the Nazis forced the Jewish population to report their wealth right after the anschluss so that they’d be able to steal it easier during aryanization which one legal advisor for the Nazi Ministry of Economics deemed the “forerunner to a complete and definitive removal of Jews from the German economy.”
And of course it’s not like making all currency digital and controlled by the same government that would be taken over by said cult of personality would make that even easier to do this time around or anything. Don’t worry though of course “that could never happen here.”
I recommended reading about statelessness. Some 4…5million people are stateless. As a result, they often don’t have and cannot obtain any documents. Have you tried opening a bank account without documents? (Spoiler: basically impossible in most countries)
I’ve been cashless for about a decade now. I have no problem with donating money, giving or recieving monay as a gift. I never give the homeless money, but I often buy them food. Why couldn’t you buy or sell something to people? You can easily transfer someone a small sum of money using their phone number. Same with garage sales. When was the last time You saw a Piggy Bank?
Many unhoused people do not have a phone.
They also don’t have homes, what’s your point?
Yeah! Fuck them! If they don’t have homes or cards they don’t deserve food, get good scrubs!
FFS. Please read the previous comment. I don’t give money to the poor. I give money to charitable organisations. They have bank accounts. Also every single time in my life when I was asked by a homeless person for food, I bought them food. Shops have card readers. I don’t need cash to help people.
Oh yes charitable organizations which in the US definitely aren’t usually just a corporate tax write-off with so much money wasted on overhead that could have directly went to helping people.
I’m not in the US.
Fair lol.
This was a direct response to someone saying “You can easily transfer someone a small sum of money using their phone number.”
You can’t easily transfer someone money using their phone if they don’t have one. (Though I learned after that many do have phones, many aren’t smart phones and they do have high turnover of phone and phone number. So I think cash is still superior overall)
Why would I need to transfer money to the homeless?
Did you not read the previous comments? The context includes “I never give the homeless money, but I often buy them food.” and also the idea of being a cashless society.
Some people give the homeless money because the homeless person doesn’t have any, and if you give them a couple dollars they can get something to eat. I don’t have to explain charity, I hope.
Again. Why would I give a homeless person money for food, if I can just give them food?
Perhaps you have money on you, but no food. You may be in a place where food cannot be readily purchased (eg: a subway train).
It’s been at least a decade since I’ve seen a homeless person without a phone. Free government phones are easy to get. They all have them.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6516785/
However, little is known about homeless adults’ technology access and use. Utilizing data from a study of 421 homeless adults moving into PSH, this paper presents descriptive technology findings, and compares results to age-matched general population data. The vast majority (94%) currently owned a cell phone, although there was considerable past 3-month turnover in phones (56%) and phone numbers (55%). More than half currently owned a smartphone, and 86% of those used Android operating systems. Most (85%) used a cell phone daily, 76% used text messaging, and 51% accessed the Internet on their cell phone. One-third reported no past 3-month Internet use
Based on that study, many have a cell phone, but not all of them have smart phones. There’s also a lot of turnover.
I’ve never had a homeless person ask me to venmo them some money.
in other countries outside of the USA, you can use phone credit as money. Since you can transfer phone credit to people, and credit is stored as a money amount… it’s easy.
No smart tech needed. Just a free sms.
Which country is giving away free phones? I have never heard that before.
Wait a few weeks and Google will be giving away free phones, just so they can track everybody. Wait a couple more weeks, and having a tracked phone will be mandatory.
I apologize for not clarifying that I’m in the US
Spot on. The wild part is that people will still justify it and even hope for it. The replies here are evidence of that. You can’t fix stupid, sadly.
“No cash donations to hungry homeless you pass”
i.e. Drug addicts and mental patients that you keep giving money to, so they tell all their friends and you start stocking up on vagrants in the area.
Stop fucking doing this. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, give homeless food, etc – stop giving them cash to spend on drugs and alcohol. This just enables their own self-destructive habits and doesn’t help them.
They’re having a shit life. If a dollar or 2 here and there helps them have a less shitty imma do what I want with my money.
This is an awful and harmful point of view.
Says someone who clearly has had no experience with it whatsoever.
Yeah and how many times have you been homeless?
Regardless, you’re being a selfish dick. Have some empathy.
It’s not just empathy. It’s also ability to think. Drugs and alcohol don’t have any nutritional value. Homeless that asks for money is living proof that money is spent not on drugs and alcohol.
It is sad, that some people think “Homeless are drug addicts, I won’t give them money - they should get money themselves. Homeless are dirty people, I won’t hire them. Homeless will bring property values down, I won’t rent them apartment.”
Homeless in Oslo take card
mental patients are self destructive in the same way cancer patients are.
Correct.
Cash “kindness” certainly could result an a OD death.
Stop the cash!
This seems to be heavy sarcasm
No. I’ve personally worked emergency calls from homeless camps where people use a lot of drugs. Where’s the $$ come from for the habit?
“Nice” people that are stupid enough to hand over cash to people that are HIGHLY likely to use drugs. Brilliant!
Dear Faust, this is worst human I met today.
Dear Darwin, this is the most naive human I’ve met this week.
