WHAT WILL A CASHLESS SOCIETY MEAN?
WHAT WILL A CASHLESS SOCIETY MEAN?
It’s not in the interests of the ordinary person but it’s not a conspiracy either. A cashless society is a system run amok
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WHAT WILL A CASHLESS SOCIETY MEAN?
THE PROS
CONVENIENCE — THERE WILL NO LONGER BE ANY NEED TO CARRY CASH AROUND
THE CONS
EVERY TRANSACTION YOU MAKE WILL BE TRACKED YOUR SPENDING HABITS CAN BE LINKED TO YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT
YOU WILL ONLY BE PERMITTED TO SPEND ON THINGS THE GOVERNMENT APPROVES OF. THINGS THAT ARE DEEMED TO BE LUXURIES — MEAT, FUEL, TRAVEL — CAN BE RESTRICTED
YOUR MONEY CAN BE PROGRAMMED WITH AN EXPIRY DATE — IF YOU DON’T SPEND IT BY A CERTAIN DATE, YOU'LL LOSE IT
THERE WILL BE NO ‘BLACK’ ECONOMY. IT WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE TO AVOID TAX, BUT THEN YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GIVE POCKET MONEY TO CHILDREN OR GRANDCHILDREN AND NEITHER WILL YOU BE ABLE TO BORROW OR LEND MONEY TO FRIENDS WITHOUT THAT BEING TAXED BY THE GOVERNMENT
PARKING AND SPEEDING FINES WILL BE TAKEN AT SOURCE, WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF CHALLENGE AND POSSIBLY EVEN WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE
IF YOU PROTEST THE ACTIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT, YOUR MONEY CAN BE SWITCHED OFF. IF YOU THINK THAT’S UNLIKELY, IT’S ALREADY HAPPENED TO TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CANADIANS WHEN THEY PROTESTED AND IT ALSO HAPPENED TO A BRITISH JOURNALIST
A CASHLESS SOCIETY MEANS THE END OF HUMAN FREEDOM
IF YOU WANT THAT, DO NOTHING
IF YOU DON'T, THE FIRST THING YOU MUST DO IS RESPOND TO THE GOVERNMENT'S PROPOSAL ON DIGITAL ID, UPON WHICH A CASHLESS SOCIETY MUST BE BASED
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/draft-legislation-to-help-more-people-prove-their- identity-online/consultation-on-draft-legislation-to-support-identity-verificat
Image Credit: Brett Scott
They grasped a small kernel of truth and encrusted a huge wad of nonsense around it. You already have to use credit for some transactions, effectively. If you try bringing 100k in cash to buy a car/house, there is a good chance it'll get seized by police. Corporations already do that tracking and they don't need credit card transactions for it - if you use a cell phone they know what store you went into. That can be combined with other metadata to know exactly what you're doing. Carrying cash does not fix this.
If you try bringing 100k in cash to buy a car/house, there is a good chance it’ll get seized by police.
In the US debtors are /entitled/ to pay their debts using legal tender, and mortgages are not excluded AFAIK. In the UK, you can legally pay your mortgage with legal tender.
if you use a cell phone they know what store you went into. That can be combined with other metadata to know exactly what you’re doing. Carrying cash does not fix this.
You need not carry a mobile phone. I don’t. Cash is part of that equation. If I walk into an unsurveilled shop with cash, no phone, and no loyalty card to buy liquor, how does that get pinned on me?
It could become criminal in the future to not carry a smartphone (with the direction things are going in), but that’s not yet the case in most of the world.
My point was not that cash wasn't being accepted. It's more that carrying large amounts of cash around is extremely risky for non obvious reasons.
Not carrying a phone is definitely possible and even commendable, but for many people it's not an option. Just off the top of my head:
If you are in an unfamiliar area unexpectedly you won't have been able to print off a map ahead of time
Many people's employers require them to be contactable during on call periods
If you are trying to get a job/caring for a sick relative, there may be risk with being unreachable for an extended period
Obviously these examples are things that can be worked around in many cases, but currently society is arranged around the idea that you have a phone on you if you want to do anything. I agree with you this is not a good thing, generally. If you are able to push the trend back it's worthwhile but short of an EMP / solar flare removing all communication networks worldwide I don't believe there is a realistic chance this changes.
Other unsorted thoughts:
I know bill serial numbers are tracked, if they really wanted they could probably find video of you getting money out of the bank/ATM. Again, there are workarounds but it gets to be more and more commitment to POSSIBLY be untraceable.
If you have friends with phones who travel with you or you get photographed in the background of someone else's social media you can get profiled that way
- All this to say, I agree with the gist of what you are saying but I don't think it's realistic to expect many people to be able to do the work for something that has less tangible benefit to them than being able to pay rent. Social change will require personal habits changing along with political pressure to make databrokers illegal, prevent tracking via metadata, etc.
Yeah, the clownvoy isn't exactly something you want to use to prove a point.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/freedom-convoy-protest-how-did-we-get-here-1.5772901
To defend a liberty is to defend said liberty for your enemies. You cannot possibly be arguing its ok to restrict some peoples rights without the court ruling on it.
On one hand, I don't think currency should exist at all, cash or otherwise.
On the other hand, I would love for everything we do to be tied to us. You cheat in video games? Congrats, no possibility to ban evade. You take a bribe as a politician? Congrats, we can all see it the second the transaction goes through. You earned a company $6,000 this week working with three other guys making only $1,000 total? They can look at the Financials and start their own company and stop making money for you. Ups and downs as with all things.
Monero fixes this. They are incredibly afraid of it, and they have every right to be.
Even if your monero wallet or account or whatever is firmly linked to your real identity?
That's really not very doable since Monero acts as digital cash. Therefore, once you have it in Monero, you can spend it and they have no idea, you can lose it and they have no idea, or you can keep it and they have no idea. And you can move it around and they have no idea. So if they ask about it, you can very easily make the argument that you no longer have it unless they're going to use force on you that is.
My conspiracy theory is the whole nft thing was a psyop to make crypto untrustworthy in the eyes of the majority.
If so, it was only partially successful. Surveys show about 15% of US adults own crypto and that number is rising as multiple cycles pass and people end up with multiple touch points. A person who heard about it in 2013 is probably like, no, I'll check this out later and forget about it. And then in 2017, they hear about it again. And it's like, oh, I'll check this out later. And they forget about it. And then in 2021, they're like, okay, this thing is still here. I really need to actually check it out now and go look into it.
Not sure what your point is. Monero is far more traceable than cash. Any self-respecting privacy advocate would fight against the war on cash first and foremost. Anything else is less important to fight for because it’s less private. When cash is gone, gold coins will probably be more private than Monero.