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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

On the one hand it's obvious that the Hindenburg people are right on this when they say that Block's app is used for criminal activities and money laundering. On the other hand that's what we get for trying to push cash itself more and more outside the boundaries of modern society. That video in a way made me root for the bad guys, a no-cash society where petty crime doesn't happen because the powers that be control it all is a not a society I personally want to be part of.

And then there is also the racial-related aspect of it all, not sure the Hindenburg analysts were aware of it. As in there is no white rapper in that video of theirs.

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> As in there is no white rapper in that video of theirs.

Indeed, white rap artists are very underrepresented in mainstream popular music. There is a case for it being discrimination based on skin colour.

What racial aspect? Please explain

I've explicitly mentioned that these analysts used only black people as the "criminals" in their example video. Interesting that it flew right past them.

> these analysts used only black people as the "criminals" in their example video

Block targets Black Americans. This is like complaining about a gardening company’s analysts only talking about gardeners.

> Block targets Black Americans

Even worse. So one of the companies that tries to address/serve the black demographic is being put down but what I assume are not black financial analysts.

Like I've said, this Hindenburg company seems to not be aware of the whole societal background.

> one of the companies that tries to address/serve the black demographic is being put down but what I assume are not black financial analysts

This sounds like Adani’s defenders getting mad about Hindenburg not being Indian. Fraud is fraud. Their specialty is fraud. Why is fraud okay or not depending on who’s committing it?

Are there any white rappers name-dropping Cashapp in a similar context? That seems like the obvious case you would need to address before making this point.

Are there more artists name checking Cash App that they missed?

yes https://www.google.com/search?q=site:genius.com+cash+app

in USA politics, this approach to outrage among literate people is related to "Willy Horton" ads, which portray an obviously stereotypical, middle-aged black man with a long history of crime, being released into society and then in the same breath blaming the authorities politically. This famously backfired.

The intended outrage here is "ghetto males" doing illegal things with money, using the cell phone, and bragging about it. The parent post here points to major just-under-the-surface problems with this kind of personal, borderline racist attack at the societal scale. Definitely concur here that a perfectly-enforced police state is not desirable, mostly because it is not possible, and the more force that is used in the remaining edge cases, makes things much worse overall, at too high a cost.

This coming just mere weeks away after people on this forum (and some of the people running the forum itself, like the CEO of YCombinator) were supporting (and more) much more bigger fraudsters compared to the rap lyricists presented here as examples of financial fraud, I'm talking about the VC industry in connection with the SVB case.

On a more general note I'm also curious about what you mention at the end of your comment, i.e. those higher societal costs are keep piling up, I'm wondering where is it all going to end.

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