https://aeon.co/essays/if-plastic-replaces-cash-much-that-is-good-will-be-lo... I recently found myself facing a vending machine in a quiet corridor at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. I was due to speak at a conference called ‘Reinvent Money’ but, suffering from jetlag and exhaustion, I was on a search for Coca-Cola. The vending machine had a small digital interface built by a Dutch company called Payter. Printed on it was a sentence: ‘Contactless payment only.’ I touched down my bank card, but rather than dispensing Coke, it beeped a message: ‘Card invalid.’ Not all cards are created equal, even if you can get one – and not everyone can. ... And ask yourself this: do you really want to live in the latter society without the ability to buy drugs? Believe me, you’ll need something to dull the existential pain. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13782561 The core concept to remember I think is that there are two ways to pay for things: * Ways that involve cash or cash equivalents * Ways where a purchase requires the permission of someone else Just think of the word authorization, which is a required element of essentially all non-cash transactions. It has the word authority embedded right in it. If you're OK with that concept, you are necessarily OK with the idea that someone you have never met and don't control has the ability to stop you from using your funds in the way you'd like to at any time. A cashless society is, at a fundamental level, not free.
On 03/06/2017 03:29 PM, grarpamp wrote:
https://aeon.co/essays/if-plastic-replaces-cash-much-that-is-good-will-be-lo...
I recently found myself facing a vending machine in a quiet corridor at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. I was due to speak at a conference called ‘Reinvent Money’ but, suffering from jetlag and exhaustion, I was on a search for Coca-Cola. The vending machine had a small digital interface built by a Dutch company called Payter. Printed on it was a sentence: ‘Contactless payment only.’ I touched down my bank card, but rather than dispensing Coke, it beeped a message: ‘Card invalid.’ Not all cards are created equal, even if you can get one – and not everyone can. ... And ask yourself this: do you really want to live in the latter society without the ability to buy drugs? Believe me, you’ll need something to dull the existential pain.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13782561
The core concept to remember I think is that there are two ways to pay for things:
* Ways that involve cash or cash equivalents
* Ways where a purchase requires the permission of someone else
Just think of the word authorization, which is a required element of essentially all non-cash transactions. It has the word authority embedded right in it. If you're OK with that concept, you are necessarily OK with the idea that someone you have never met and don't control has the ability to stop you from using your funds in the way you'd like to at any time.
A cashless society is, at a fundamental level, not free.
Contactless... Samsung Galaxy S7 for instance. You loads your credit card magnetic stripe data into it and all you have to do (sucker) is hold it near the store's cardreader. Rr
On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 11:09 PM, Razer <g2s@riseup.net> wrote:
Contactless... Samsung Galaxy S7 for instance. You loads your credit card magnetic stripe data into it and all you have to do (sucker) is hold it near the store's cardreader.
Frictionless... what they try to achieve by lubing your asshole before fucking more of your rights, privacy and freedom out of you, that way you don't feel any pain and gleefully invite them back for more.
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grarpamp -
Razer