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Surviving the Cashless Cataclysm
MrSeb writes "There's been a lot of noise about Sweden becoming a cashless economy, and the potential repercussions that it might cause, most notably the (apparent) annihilation of privacy. Really, though, I think this is a load of hot air. Physical money might be on the way out, but that doesn't mean the end of anonymous, untraceable cash — it'll just become digital. If Bitcoin has taught us anything, it's possible to create an irreversible, cryptographic currency — but so far it has failed because it doesn't have sovereign backing. What if the US or UK (or any other country for that matter) issued digital cash? We would suddenly have an anonymous currency that can be kept on credit chips (or smartphones) and traded, just like paper money. No longer would handling money require expensive cash registers, safes, and secure collections; your smartphone could be your point of sale. It won't be easy to get governments to pass digital cash into law, though, not with big banks and megacorps lobbying for centralized, electronic, traceable currency. Here's hoping Sweden makes the right choice when the referendum to retire physical money finally rolls around."
I don't give a crap about who tracks what already. Cash may be one of the last bastions of anonymity and privacy left to us! If I want to pay for cash for everything I can, then I should be able to do that! What I buy at the grocery store, or what movie I go see, or what restaurant I eat at, etc. is nobody's business but mine. Aren't things already bad enough in this world? I can't say it loud enough: DO NOT WANT!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
You have that a bit backwards. It's not the megacorps lobbying for traceable currency, it's the government forcing the banks to have traceable currency so that they can monitor and shut down terrorists, drug cartels, tax frauds, etc. Hint: the term "money laundering" means moving money through transactions not traceable by the government. Plenty of banks and megacorps have in the past and continue to provide essentially untraceable transactions.
You're going to need to provide some evidence for the claim that bitcoins have failed because of a lack of sovereign entity backing them. There's a whole slew of other reasons that probably contribute far more to the poor adoption rate of bitcoins.
Why would any government endorse an untraceable digital currency scheme, when the whole point of the scheme is to circumvent the government's regulatory and investigatory powers?
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Maybe its just me, but your logic of using an illegal situation to justify why a digital economy shouldn't exist seems like a bad argument.
First, the obvious: How do you pay someone who doesn't have the means to register your payment? Private to private money deals will become virtually impossible unless both parties have some kind of electronic device on them permanently. And it may be unbelievable to some, but there are still people who refuse to carry a smart phone around. How do I lend my buddy 10 bucks if he has no means to receive them?
Then, the criminal. Untraceable, yeah, sure, tell someone who believes you. Criminals will not use it. Instead, they will keep the cash in circulation. And why shouldn't they? The very first thing I will do as soon as it becomes a fact that this goes through is to go to the bank and withdraw as much money as I can in the lowest possible bills available. Trust me, this money will become more and more valuable as time goes by, as it is used for back alley deals and as it gets out of circulation because of busts and people returning it to their account. ANY currency that you can only spend but not collect becomes more valuable over time, as long as there are people who give it value. And that stuff WILL be valuable, and if not, I can always still hand it back to the bank and deposit it. The alternative being, of course, that some foreign currency suddenly becomes the street bill. For reference, see Cuba. You want something aside of the state-approved crap? You better have greenbacks with you.
And finally, how about people who do not get a bank account? It's not like it's possible for them to have a halfway decent life now, but then, it will become virtually impossible. Try to get a job in Europe without a bank account. Just try. No such luck. There is NO way you will be paid in cash. No company I know of will ever even consider doing it. Now on the other hand, try to open an account if you're homeless. Try it. I dare you. How the heck do you think these people will ever get back on their feet? Because then your excuse "if he really wanted, he could" doesn't work anymore. He CANNOT anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Until you realize that tons are things of illegal that shouldn't be.
giving money to bradley manning defence fund
- Hiring a consenting prostitute
- Purchasing pornography over the internet that goes beyond contemporary community standards
- Purchasing alcohol of some types/quantities/purities that may not be lawful in your state or county.
- Purchasing unpasteurized dairy products
- Person-Person transactions that are not directly taxed. If you think it should be-- fuck you, my 14 year old kid should be able to mow the neighbor's lawn without the IRS getting a cut. And I should be able to pay an allowance the same.
- Purchasing anything that I want to remain private -- legality aside. Prepaid cellphones/sims and other 'cash only' items people value for whatever reason...
- Certain 'holistic' medical practices. My body. My choice. My right.
- Bitcoin is arguably illegal in the US, as are other competing currencies.
Should I keep going with other more sensitive things?
I can give a good example of something that actually IS legal yet is interfered with because the govt dont like it. Wikileaks.
Wikileaks remains within the first ammendment (And should Assange be charged, any competent judge will throw it out based on the Elesburg precedent) yet because its extremely difficult to make real-world payments due to the internet nature of it, their ability to tell samizdat news has been wrecked by interference from governments and their bank lackeys.
If cash payments become impossible everywhere you can expect that to extend to other things where govts dont like it, particularly political parties with agendas unpopular with government, such as socialists , anarchists and stateless capitalists, or groups such as sea-shephard etc that strongly agitate governments.
Finally there are legal products that one might want off the record, such as sex products or in the US firearms.
Privacy is important dude, and there really is no such thing as anonymous online currenct. Even bitcoin (aka "comedy currency") isnt anonymous, in fact the oposite, once you know someones block address you can easily trace their transactions just by examining the record of the block-chain.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
But---you use the apostrophe to form the plural, so you're still in. Congrats.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.