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Comment by aleph_minus_one | Hacker News Reader

> We don't appreciate its meaning anymore, but cash is literally the only anonymous payment method you can have in this lifetime, and people in Germany tend NOT to trust any entity/company/government holding your data for no particular purpose.

Exactly.

This is the eperience from two dicatorships on German soil in the 20th century of which one ended less than 35 years ago (many of its crimes still have not been prosecuted). There still exist lots of contemporary witnesses who can tell you what being potentially be surveilled means in the day-to-day life.

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I heard of people being sent ... far away ... just because of jealous neighbors spying on you.

That's some level of f** up.

No wonder that cash is the only accepted payment method in a world that tries at all costs to sneak into your private stuff.

> This is the eperience from two dicatorships on German soil in the 20th century of which one ended less than 25 years ago

In comparison to the NSDAP and SED, I think calling the 15 years of CDU government under Helmut Kohl (which actually ended a bit over 25 years ago) a dictatorship is a bit too harsh... /s

> I think calling the 15 years of CDU government under Helmut Kohl

I fixed my mistake. :-)

Didn't Germany have 3 dictatorships in the 20th century?

East Germany (ended in 1990), Third Reich (ended in 1945), German Monarchy (ended in 1918)

I'm not used to people calling monarchies dictatorships, even though they are in some ways similar. Until 1918, many states in Europe were monarchies.

Calling Saudi Arabia a dictatorship is unfamiliar to you?

Yes. And in any case, that wasn't the point. I haven't seen anybody refer to pre-WWI European monarchies as "dictatorships".

Right. Funny way to point out treaty of Darin as a breaking point.

No idea what your point is. The German empire wasn't a dictatorship, if you want to claim otherwise, find me a credible source that says so.

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