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.
If the government made it illegal to use anything as cash and outlawed barter as well then what do you do?
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.
Sure a government can make barter illegal, and they’d justify it by saying that taxes have to be collected on all transactions between individuals involving goods and services, and bartering evades paying the taxes. Now of course you’re likely to say “oh well the government would never do such a thing” but that’s what everyone always says, right up until the government decides to do whatever it is they were sure would never be done.
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.
Removed by mod
Oh look another moron.
We aren’t at the point as a society to be fully cashless. Maybe someday it could work but I think that day is very far away. Look how fucked up even the most basic parts of society are. We can’t even get societies and cultures to live together in peace or something that resembles balance and harmony. Lack of privacy and security is holding back the star trek future. Trying to make these good intentioned theoretical changes in society before society is humanly ready will fuck us all.
I think humanity is a lot further behind than most think. … And it almost feels like social life and community is getting more and more primitive, wild, and fragmented as time goes on. These different future paths are marketed from and for them, the corporations and greedy, not us.
There are many places in larger cities that will or accept cash. Many do it the name of safer practices (can’t be robbed if you ever have cash), but it’s still leading to the same outcome.
can’t be robbed if you ever have cash
They can kidnap you and force you to send money to a straw-man account. Happens a lot here in Brazil.
Can’t have shit in this world.
Some places are basically cashless already though, look at Sweden
They’re protesting an awful lot for something that is so far away
“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.
mental patients are self destructive in the same way cancer patients are.
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.”
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.
Homeless in Oslo take card
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.
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.
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.
I used my phone to tap and pay back in December '21. Not a new thing.
You can buy preloaded credit cards with cash from convenience stores. It’s as trackable as your MetroCard.
trace anyone’s movements
There’s literally a GPS enabled mind control device in almost everyone’s pocket.
Yes but its not required to get around, airplane mode, and not everyone has their cell service tied to their name, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
Interesting, I stand corrected. Thanks for informing me.
Two cell towers allow to get precise location from angles.
But using two cell towers and angles would literally be triangulation…
2=3?
Yeah and there’s a reason you can’t drive unregistered and that reason has nothing to do with bad drivers.
Bruh what you can buy omny cards for cash in stores.
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.
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.
There famously were some cases in Germany, but yeah, they also did more stealth things, like book contracts for example.
The author has never seen a check.
The author has never seen a cash app in use
Cash app that always takes screenshots of your screen, refuses to work on privacy-oriented Android distros, request access to raw fingerprint and lot of other sussy things.
Don’t know what apps you guys have in the states, but that’d be illegal in the EU. More so if it’s one of the countries with govt-backed cash apps.
Yes, I’ll gladly deposit this check into the bank for homeless people. Right after I give half of it to my friend whose partner harasses them and controls their accounts
the bank for homeless people
Which is a real thing, in this hypothetical.
Right after I give half of it to my friend whose partner harasses them and controls their accounts
The accounts they know about.
Even if you still scoff at these: that’s two out of nine. The rest are pretending people can’t give money to other people… for some reason. Three of them are just rephrasing “no garage sales.” Yeah, you can’t sell your couch for a bit of cash if there’s no cash, but you can still sell your couch, for money.
Bad arguments for good conclusions are still bad arguments.
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.
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.
“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.
- Banks have full control of every single cent you own.
• Every transaction vou make is recorded.
That sounds like a fair deal to me!?
Really?
Not really, no. Imagine a “/s” at the end of my post. :)
Removed by mod
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?
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.
Normal life. As much as people want to deny it, it’s actually really important.
And giftcards will still exist, still traceable though.
unfortunately. god they suck so much. they’re like money, but worse in every way.
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.
Some restaurants deliberately stopped accepting cash to exempt homeless people from patronage. Imagine being so gross that you change your policies to bar people from getting food.
Is that the real reason? Or because it’s a) safer for the shop (no cash on hand) and b) much simpler for the staff (no counting money, figuring out change etc…)
Not everything is purely about being evil you know…
Imagine being so gross that policies are changed to bar you from getting food.
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.
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.
Which country is giving away free phones? I have never heard that before.
I apologize for not clarifying that I’m in the US
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.
They also don’t have homes, what’s your point?
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).
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.
Marketplace is illegal now? Also, if everyone is cashless, don’t you think garage sale people accept cashless?
Where does it say marketplace would be illegal? The bank fraud thing seems like a stretch but technically possible and that be the same risk at a garage sale.
Some people already live in a cashless (a d moneyless) society already - the homeless and those who are incarcerated. Also children. They tend to barter and trade for stuff. It’s not that crazy of an idea, most people figure it out.
Thank you for you’re intelligent and insightful comment
The US isn’t a country where something like that would work. Cops would probably be ordered to arrest anyone who tries to do business that way.
no.
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).
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*
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
