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In a World Without Cash, Every Payment You Make Will be Traceable

posted by Fnord666 on Friday July 21 2017, @08:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the black-market dept.

canopic jug writes:

With many countries already heading towards cashless transactions, we are facing some hard decisions. These decisions will be made whether we ignore them or not, so to have a say it is essential to be active. These are not new issues, but they are quickly approaching. Dominic Frisby at The Guardian is the latest to take up some of the pertinent questions around the move to a cashless society.

Poor people and small businesses rely on cash. A contactless system will likely entrench poverty and pave the way for terrifying levels of surveillance.

Source: Why we should fear a cashless world

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @09:20PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @09:20PM (#542581)

    Barter? But my Mr. Spock bust is hard to carry in my pocket and most people don't value it enough for general trade. One has to pretty much agree on what to trade ahead of time via the web, and small shops will be chock full of clutter for pending or future trades.

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  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday July 21 2017, @10:07PM (1 child)

    by Nuke (3162) on Friday July 21 2017, @10:07PM (#542596)

    Barter? But my Mr. Spock bust is hard to carry in my pocket and most people don't value it enough for general trade.

    But that is exactly the sort of thing that poorer people used to do after all their cash had been spent on subsistence, very common in the UK until around 50 years ago. There used to be entire publications dedicated to people swapping things such as Exchange and Mart [wikipedia.org]. The TLA "WHY" meant like : "What Have You in exchange for my Mr Spock bust?"

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 21 2017, @11:41PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday July 21 2017, @11:41PM (#542636) Homepage

      I'll trade my fully functional 561A [wordpress.com] for your bust of Mr. Spock and your first-edition leaked nude photos of Laura Schlessinger and Diana Muldaur.

      Anyway, although the usual civil-liberties crowds are freaking out here, there's a much more pragmatic reason to abolish cash -- card vendors earn exorbitant and extortionate transaction fees from card usage. So much, in fact, that they're willing to pay up front to sweeten the deal. [cnn.com]