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Comment by infamouscow | Hacker News Reader

The elites want CBDCs to control the masses for reasons like this. It's trivial to crush the people when you control their money.

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Please explain how CBDCs give governments power they don't currently have?

Paper money doesn't magically stop working because some bureaucrat has an axe to grind, or is corrupt. The government not currently having that power is exactly why power-hungry maniacs want CBDCs.

Let's say we had CBDCs and the party you don't like wins the 2024 elections. Instead of being able to go protest, now the POTUS declares an emergency and just turns off money for opposition groups, or at restaurants, hotels, and gas stations in an area.

Seems like a great way to invite tyranny.

Do you get paid in paper money that your employer doesn't report to the government? Because firstly, that's a crime, and you're risking serious consequences just to meet your definition of freedom, and secondly, very few people can do that (not everyone on earth can be a janitor), and thirdly, if everyone did it the government would crack down on it even harder.

So you need to establish that "paper money" is the alternative to CBDC and not, you know, what we have now, which is an almost fully-digital system which the government is free to interfere with in ANY way they see fit INCLUDING each and EVERY negative consequence of CBDC you envision.

This. It appears that only those of us who live in authoritarian countries have learnt this lesson.

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