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A new study out of Sweden says the tiny country is on course to become the world's first "cashless society," thanks in part to a mobile payment app called Swish.
The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm released a statement in October quoting researcher Niklas Arvidsson, who said cash is an important means of payment in many countries, "... but that no longer applies here in Sweden."
Arvidsson and his team of researchers said there are about 80 billion Swedish crowns in regular circulation, down from 106 billion six years ago. "And out of that amount, only somewhere between 40 and 60 percent is actually in regular circulation. ... Our use of cash is small, and it is decreasing rapidly."
Swish has more than 3.5 million users (of Sweden's total population of 9.5 million) and nearly 4.5 billion Swedish crowns were "Swished" in October.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:48AM
Obviously there are places in the world, as rare as it might be, where the government actually does its best working for the people of the country.
This is the sort of naive attitude that enables oppression. As soon as you let your guard down (and even if you don't, but to a lesser extent), that allows the government to begin chiseling away at your freedoms.
Suffice to say in a place like this your ramblings would be dismissed as paranoia.
Suffice to say, dismissing my statements as paranoia just demonstrates severe ignorance of history and human nature. There has not been a single government throughout history that has not abused its powers in horrendous ways and oppressed its people. Not one. That is because power corrupts and corrupt people tend to want power so they can use it for their own ends. Now you're going to tell me, that merely by virtue of being part of the Swedish government, that people become perfect beings incapable of abusing their powers or making mistakes that result in the violation of people's rights, and all this in the face of all the historical evidence of government corruption? Don't make me laugh. It's extremely arrogant for someone to pretend that because the politicians work for the Swedish government, that they are magically better than the ones from elsewhere; it's pure insanity, and it's the sort of insanity that will lead to the loss of freedoms. If anything is better, it's because you put proper checks and balances on your government in some areas and work towards securing your own freedoms and privacy. The government isn't better because it's in Sweden or other countries.
Another problem with what you said is that Sweden is already *far* from free. Their government engages in censorship, bans drugs, definitely would love to have mass surveillance on the scale that we have in the US (and), and probably many other things that someone from Sweden would know. Furthermore, a violation of your privacy is bad in and of itself, even if it is done by imaginary benevolent people. Privacy is a goal in and of itself; it's not just for security.
Do me a favor and tell these people who would dismiss my statements as paranoia to move to North Korea where they belong.
We will sit back and pointlessly point out their "folly" while doing absolutely nothing about ours.
Who says we should do nothing? In case you haven't noticed, many (but not enough) people are working towards stopping government oppression and lawbreaking.
Besides, you ignored what I said about businesses. Even if you're dumb enough to believe the government is full of perfect beings, certainly you're not unintelligent enough to believe the same is true of businesses?