Hacker News Reader

Comment by cced | Hacker News Reader

The Canadian government just mandated the freezing of bank accounts for protestors associated with the freedom convoy. Let’s not pretend like the government can’t decide to reclassify what it thinks is legal based on what coloured shirt it’s wearing.

View on HN

So as govt has the power to seize bank accounts anyway, CBDC would not make any difference at all in this case, it's a question of govt accountability.

The article seems to conflate CBDC with a totally cashless society, which yes, we should probably think through a bit more carefully.

While it could be seen as a conflation in theory, in practice it almost certainly is. The purpose of a CBDC is complete government control over the monetary system, cash cannot remain in existence if this goal is achieved. Many advanced economies have been practically cashless for years, and the friction from phone payments via PCI networks to phone payments with a CBDC app is very little.

The loss of physical cash to the un & underbanked in the US will probably be the reason that a CBDC will not be adopted any time soon, highlighted as a risk in the recent paper. However in all states, CBDC is an inevitability, just as it is inevitable that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are used day-to-day as an alternative to the state CBDC.

> So as govt has the power to seize bank accounts anyway, CBDC would not make any difference at all in this case, it's a question of govt accountability.

So because it’s possible we should consent to a system that makes it programmatic and infinitely scalable across the whole population?

You don’t seem to get the implications of government-controlled programmable money.

https://bfsi.economictimes.indiatimes.com/amp/news/policy/di...

It does matter. See things like Operation Choke Point and how much easier that becomes with federal centralization.

This really gets me. These "protestors" were given MULTIPLE warnings over many days to leave the area as this was no longer a simple protest, but had become an occupation of the downtown core. The "protestors" ignored the warnings and thought they were all above the law. The government had every right to do what it did with these people.

I'm 100% for a peaceful protest, but these people went WELL beyond that.

I wonder how MLK Jr. would have fared if America had a CBDC in the 1960s. MLK was arrested a total of 29 times--given multiple "warnings" as you say--and I doubt he would have been as successful in his goals if the government had an effortless ability to suspend his and his supporters ability to transact instead of having to send in violent thugs and dogs. Every protest is an occupation, a riot, if it's on the "wrong" side.

Even if the protestors were engaged in mass murder, that would still not authorise the government to freeze their accounts. It would just mean the government had a good case against them in court.

>Let’s not pretend like the government can’t decide to reclassify what it thinks is legal based on what coloured shirt it’s wearing.

Well it can't given that the rule of law exists in Canada. But if you're telling me that central bank money makes it possible to shut the funding of groups down who stage illegal protests that cause untold economic damage because they don't understand how vaccines work in my book that's the best argument for CBDCs yet.

I'm not exactly sure why I'm supposed to freak out about the fact that the government can declare things illegal. Like, yeah that's it's job, digital currencies aside.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com