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.
And giftcards will still exist, still traceable though.
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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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.
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?
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No one is arguing for a cashless society though?
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.
That’s not an argument for a cashless society.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bruh what you can buy omny cards for cash in stores.
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.
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.
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.
I think I will instead promote keeping their power limited, such as by using cash
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.
Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and Paypal famously colluded to block donations to wikileaks. That control was exercised at an international level.
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.
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)
All of these reasons are why the corporations want to force us all to use digital currency completely controlled by them.
They could make the digital money invalid at stores they don’t like, they could make it invalid for buying something they don’t want you to buy and they can make it expire after awhile, forcing you to spend it instead of saving it.
Well I think banks have a few laws that prevent those things. But remembering the Pornhub incident where MasterCard and Visa stopped their partnership to strongarm them. In that case the motivation was child safety and not greed. But it was a display of power.
Pornhub does everything they can to remove nonconsensual stuff from their platform as quickly as possible
The boomers in the executive room just listened to the media sensationalizing the story and hit the nuclear option without taking any objective looks at what was actually going on
They could make the digital money invalid at stores they don’t like, they could make it invalid for buying something they don’t want you to buy
Credit card companies already do this.
Sad to see all the Monero fans and no GNU Taler fans here
Monero is the one everyone has heard of. That fact combined with knowing its untraceable is what makes it valuable.
Yeah, it’s popular among the crypto folks. But GNU Taler has advantages over Monero. Buyers are also untraceable, but sellers are not. So they are taxable, which is pretty neat. The EU and Swiss governments are experimenting with it and for them the taxation part is kind of valuable.
Edit: Ah, and it also doesn’t rely on a blockchain, so offline transactions are feasible etc.
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.
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