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Comment by jimmywanger | Hacker News Reader

Having no cash is the authoritarian's fantasy.

When every transaction is trackable, everything is taxable and able to be fed into big data.

"Sorry, sir, we can't sell you health insurance. Our records show that you've been purchasing too much alcohol."

"Excuse me sir, we're from the local police. We're concerned that you've recently bought 500 rounds of 22lr ammunition (and that's a perfectly reasonable amount). Mind coming down to the station and answering some questions?"

Edit:

And of course, the ever popular.

"Hey, we noticed you bought a used car. Based on your finances you shouldn't have been able to afford it, according to our calculations, unless you've been getting paid without notifying us. We already know what you spend and how you spend it, and how much money you make. You're going to prison for tax fraud."

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It's incredible how ignorant some folks can be when it comes to why cash is still considered king today. For one, half of all small transactions (less than $50) are made in cash.

OH the other day in Palo Alto: "Cash will no longer be a thing in 5 years."

Sorry, we are still roughly 200 years away from achieving this authoritarian fantasy, if we are to consider the current rate of decline of payments made in cash. I wish folks would leave their suburban bubble for once and talk with real people across America, especially those living at the bottom of the pyramid.

The interesting thing is, this has to be adopted internationally.

If RMB or Euros still exist in paper form, but the USD doesn't, or any combination thereof, the economies will quickly shift to taking foreign currency as a matter of course.

If you're selling tacos or hot dogs on a street corner, you're not really caring what kind of money you're taking in, as long as it's good and honored by the people you owe money to.

Obviously for large transactions, there will be currency controls (and there already are). But for small day to day stuff? Like restaurants and dealing with food suppliers? Or hell, even hiring the neighbor's kid to shovel out snow or mow your lawn.

As long as there's some form of cash, that's what they'll use.

In the Netherlands, I use cash for none of those. Well, for young kids. And _some_ street corner food, rarely.

The thing is that once almost everything is cashless, using cash for something becomes a burden. You need to get some from an ATM, pay with it, then you have change to carry with you. I don't have a wallet with space for cash anymore, so it's loose change in pocket, that I probably won't use for weeks. If there is a food stall around that does take cards, I go there.

In fact I'd probably do a bank transfer to the kid's father's account, and let them settle it with the kid's allowance or so.

Sure. In the US, at least where I live, a lot of smaller restaurants don't take cards, as well as a lot of smaller non-chain neighborhood bars.

If you're paying cashless, the credit card processor and company is skimming a small percentage off the tips. With the razor margins in the hospitality/food industry, that 3% adds up to maybe your entire profit margin.

In the Netherlands credit cards also take a percentage like that, and that's why they're not accepted everywhere.

But Maestro and VPAY debit cards have a flat fee of something like 5 cents per transaction, less if your company does many.

if we are to consider the current rate of decline of payments made in cash

And why would we do that, in this age of technological acceleration?

Technology will continue to have a material impact on the amount of cash in circulation, of course. The evolution of money is fascinating to watch, though I believe it is important to consider that not everyone will be able to participate in this fantasy we dream of.

Open-loop prepaid cards have helped eliminate paper transfer channels to a degree (which is a positive step in the right direction) but we cannot ignore the 2.5B people on this planet who do not have access to modern financial services at all. For the rural farmer in Southeast Asia, cash is all he/she knows.

Only if you consider cryptocurrency "cash". Otherwise, plenty of people are already living exclusively on bitcoin today with many benefits and few of the scare mongering issues. I can't imagine the masses are still 2 whole generations from catching up, I'd think about 10 years would be enough.

Isn't bitcoin limited to 10 transactions a second, roughly?

We're hitting some real limitations with cryptocurrency, if the second gen ones are better, good on them, let me know.

If I'm trying to pay for breakfast in a jook shop in Hong Kong, you better believe that it's going to be cash, not something the shop owner has to get online to accept.

> Otherwise, plenty of people are already living exclusively on bitcoin today

Citation needed? This seems hard to believe unless "plenty of people" is in the ballpark of maybe a dozen.

Bitcoin has exactly the same problems as any other cashless interaction.

It's where my money is, but it's not the next cash.

I find it a bit silly that "catching tax fraud" is the main marker of the authoritarian. And then some jump to bitcoin, which is by definition perfectly auditable, as a decentralised ledger.

Even in a cashless society, governments (well some, anyways) still require warrants to search business records, to wiretap, to follow you around.

Inversely, even in cashful societies tracking all of this is still pretty easy. You register car purchases through the state. Your employer files taxes.

This is why a strong, independent judiciary is important!

I don't think that's the main marker of the authoritarian, and that's a fairly reductive way to think about it.

Put it another way, what can be tracked should be tracked is the way we should be thinking about authoritarians.

If there exists a database where all transactions can be monitored and datamined, they will be monitored and datamined in the name of national security, terrorism, or money laundering.

Plus, I don't even want to think about private companies. "Sorry sir, unless you give us the right to search your financial records for suspicious transactions, we're not giving you car insurance or a mortgage. Or a job."

But this is why privacy laws are so big in the EU, sharing such data with other companies leads to huge fines.

"We've used data from your employer's requirement to register you as a foreign employee, and the fact that you've been shopping at B&Q recently, as probable cause for a broad-reaching search warrant against everywhere you spend time - your home, work, mosque, social clubs, and your best friend's house. At the same time, we're detaining you under the Terrorism Act on suspicion of materially aiding a terrorist operation."

That should be a lot scarier than "they're taking our guns away" or the obvious continuation of capitalism. Many countries across the EU, and the US, have politicians with broad support who are promoting outright fascism. It's not very difficult to see where this road goes for members of our least accepted minorities.

Can you name a few countries in the EU where politicians advocating for what you describe get broad support?

I mean. I've yet to hear for anyone seriously calling for Theresa May's dismissal and a re-election, and her Government has asked for exactly that - companies to report on their foreign workers to the Government. She has overrode the Home Secretary on whether this data would be made (partially) public with companies "named and shamed", but has stated since that she would still like the reporting to happen.

On the other side of the Channel, the National Front, a far-right party with ties in its leadership to neo-nazi ideology and Holocaust denial, is showing in the polls as likely to win the first round of voting in next year's Presidential elections. While I don't follow French politics with any great detail, I do understand that they have policies of turning a blind eye to hate crime towards Muslim people and making life difficult for Muslim people and those who associate with them. Which is, IMHO, a pretty surefire way of further pushing Muslim people into secret mosques run by radicals.

Across Europe, the far right is rising with similar proposed policies - shut Muslims out of society, label them, make it mandatory to report on their actions, make it difficult to interact with them.

I think this concept is predicated upon the culture of a government.

Australia has fully adopted contactless cards instead of cash, as others have said. [0]

However, there is a clear cut tax for transactions, GST, and though there are no rights guaranteed by the Constitution, there is a precedent where police can be called out for stalking and harassment. [1].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12740677

[1] http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-30/police-officer-invo...

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