
How a Cashless Society Could Embolden Big Brother - kafkaesq
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/cashless-society/477411/?single_page=true
======
stegosaurus
'Could'? Why do media outlets persist in tiptoeing around these issues? A
tiny, tiny minority of cashless systems are private and censorship-resistant.

Almost all of the solutions that are actually currently on the table already
do help mass surveillance, already does give more control to the government.

If we can get the general public to use open hardware without backdoors and a
cryptocurrency or similar, we might be able to come close to the privacy of
cash. But is that a realistic goal? Anyone knows how to use cash in a
reasonably private way. Barely anyone knows how to use digital technology in a
reasonably private way. It may not even be possible (are our systems
backdoored? is x86 secure?)

Taxation is always the problem hailed here. I think that fundamentally people
should have the power to withhold information from the government. That action
may result in negative consequences, but it should be possible nonetheless.

There is a huge distinction between choosing to disobey the law and
potentially being punished for it (civil disobedience), and having literally
no choice because all other avenues have become impossible.

That is what people are fighting for, that is what freedom is all about.
Perfect enforcement is not desirable.

Imagine a world in which homosexuality is impossible. Not illegal, but
impossible. That's what perfect enforcement would have looked like in the 50s.

~~~
dota_fanatic
Devil's advocate: Imagine a world in which theft, rape, slavery, and child
abuse are impossible (more than once / for any meaningful period of time).
Have you read any of Iain Banks's Culture series?

I think the peace of mind that you and everyone you'll ever know will never
get disappeared into someone's rape dungeon doesn't seem so bad. Or that you
can go into business and actually win because you're doing it better, because
your competitors aren't in bed with government, corruptly and systematically
destroying the possibility of competition. Just also don't do stupid shit like
control the expression of two consenting persons just because what they're
doing is not your cup of tea. Is this _really_ so hard to differentiate
between? And does perfect enforcement really mean minds can't changed, that
the law can't be changed after it's created if it's understood that actions X,
Y, or Z actually aren't against the universal bill of rights for living
entities?

Sure, freedom is about being able to do what you want with your life, but it
also means being able to do it safely, without the fear of getting pwned.
People who want to pwn will _always_ have the upper hand if we just all agree
we'd rather keep letting people do whatever the fuck they want so long as they
can get away with it. "Perfect enforcement" sounds only as horrible as the
culture behind it is, to me. Turning away from that is to embrace and make a
home for the devil we know---corruption, physical and sexual domination of the
weak by the powerful, environmental devastation, rampant species genocide, etc
etc etc.

~~~
lettergram
Benjamin Franklin's quote comes to mind here:

 _They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety._

Everyone realizes perfect enforcement of crimes related to rape or murder
would be "great" in the sense no one wants that. However, the risks of those
crimes happening to you are _very_ minimal today and dropping every year in
the U.S. Most victims of those crimes are placed or place themselves in
situations that bad things can occur, think drug violence.

In order to combat the stuff you mentioned we would essentially lose the
liberty to make mistakes as a society. For example, if I want to smoke weed,
and do. I'll go to prison. Today, I get a ticket.

Or let's take an even more exterem case, say I am a 16 year old male and my 16
year old girlfriend texts me a picture of her breasts. We both would be
labeled paedophiles for life, and got to prison.

There are literally millions of laws, to the point _no one_ can keep track. If
we made "Perfect Enforcement" we would all be jailed, for crossing the street
without a sidewalk, for texting a friend a picture of a statue (copy right
violation), potentially for being gay, etc.

We don't live in a society where people want to protect your freedom to not be
physically hurt. We live in a society which tries to ensure people don't get
physically, economically, socially, emotionally, hurt. This leads to many
contradicting laws, and makes it impossible to both be free and secure at the
same time. If we enforced "Perfect Enforcement" there would only be a
totalitarian Enforcement force that doesn't follow laws, and the imprisoned
populace who at least tries to follow the laws.

That's why the founding fathers added the bill of rights. They understood
this, and sadly 200+ years later it appears our society is still incapable of
understanding it.

~~~
krapp
What Benjamin Franklin said, and what you (and many people) believe he meant,
are complete opposites[0]. The "essential liberty" he was referring to was the
right of the government to form a collective defense against Native Americans,
and the purchase of "temporary safety" refers to state assemblies and private
landowners refusing to fund that defense.

What was intended to be a pro-statist argument has been turned into an anti-
statist warning, which it was never intended to be. I'm not saying the
"revised" interpretation isn't valuable - it just shouldn't be argued from the
authority of Benjamin Franklin (or, by extent, the intent of the founding
fathers) when he was complaining that people _weren 't_ sufficiently funding
the military industrial complex of the time.

[0][https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-
said](https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-said)

~~~
AnthonyMouse
I vote we do this instead:

"Those who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety will
deserve neither and lose both." -Unknown

That version of the quote is one Franklin never actually said, so it can't
accurately be attributed to him and we can avoid having to care about what he
actually meant. Because the thing in the linked post clearly isn't what
anybody else means when they use that quote.

------
skywhopper
Perhaps my upbringing is coming through, but I was surprised to see no mention
of the fact that Christian apocalypse predictors have been raving about the
implications of a "cashless society" and the control that would give
government over our lives for decades. [http://endtimestruth.com/mark-of-the-
beast/cashless-society/](http://endtimestruth.com/mark-of-the-beast/cashless-
society/)

~~~
mjklin
I've heard this about bar codes, so I guess it was inevitable for it to extend
to digital money.

[http://www.theonion.com/article/satan-to-revise-bar-code-
sys...](http://www.theonion.com/article/satan-to-revise-bar-code-system-4454)

~~~
ZoeZoeBee
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, I certainly hope so, you do
realize you're citing a satirical source, "The Onion"?

There is a distinct difference between a business using a system to keep track
of inventory and the enforcement of a digital only currency...

~~~
mjklin
So you're telling me Satan did not invent the barcode?

------
riprowan
How is money = free speech only when the recipient is a politician?

For the record, money is just an idea shared between people, and the
communication of said idea. For strong demonstrations of this, consider hawala
or consensus-based cryptocurrencies.

Humans have been assigning value to tokens and trading on the tokens since the
dawn of civilization. Outlawing this activity is dangerous to free society. It
will also make the beggar class and the poor generally even more beholden to
the state.

~~~
iofj
The short answer is because of taxes. You can't have both taxes and fully free
exchange of money.

~~~
kspaans
Sure you could! If Land Value Tax was the only tax levied (i.e. no income or
consumption taxes), it would unaffected by the anonymity of money.

~~~
fragsworth
I love the concept of a Land Value Tax. I wish some government could actually
try it out somewhere, as an exclusive tax.

~~~
zero_iq
Wouldn't this just cause the top 1% (who own the majority of the land in most
countries) to charge higher ground rents to cover their land taxes, and make
it increasingly difficult for anybody else to own land and buy out their
freeholds, entrenching the wealthy elite even further?

~~~
kspaans
If you added an LVT on top of current taxation systems, probably. One way to
make it more revenue-neutral would be to reduce some other tax, like sales
taxes.

But now consider idle land that's being held speculatively. The landowner
expected to sell it at a profit in the future, but now those profits are
impacted by the LVT. To maintain their profits they would need to find tenants
for the land in order to pay the LVT. (Or settle with less profit! :P)

~~~
dublinben
>To maintain their profits they would need to find tenants for the land in
order to pay the LVT.

Can you expand on this point please? Why would it be necessary to earn rent
from idle land in order to pay the LVT? Wouldn't unused land have a low value
under a LVT system, much like it does now?

~~~
kspaans
Good catch! I didn't mean to say the landowners would be forced to earn rent
on their idle land. I meant that if they didn't want to pay the tax themselves
(equivalent of charging the tax to their tenants), they would have to do
something economically productive with the land. This is the theorized win-win
with LVT: there is encouragement to develop otherwise-idle land.

I think you're right that introducing LVT could lower the already low values
of unused land. Perhaps its introduction would mean a glut of sales of land:
fire sale! (Win-win again, according to my armchair-economics analysis. :P)

~~~
dublinben
I guess I still don't grasp how this aspect of LVT is any different or better
than property taxes, as currently designed. If you own undeveloped land, you
still have to pay the standard property tax rate on that land, according to
its assessed value.

~~~
mahyarm
LVT implicitly incentivizes density. Assessors can determine your $1mm single
family home close to a very dense business & housing district could
potentially represent 12 $250k condos, which is $3mm of value and tax you as
such. LVT would also not be based on the actual structures on the land, so it
all about what the potential value of the usage of the land would be.

~~~
hawkice
> LVT implicitly incentivizes density.

Not necessarily, although that is certainly how it works in many residential
situations.

The general idea is removing the marginal disincentive for high-value _use_ of
the land. Property taxes mean for every dollar you spend making something more
awesome, you get taxed more. Instead, we should encourage awesomeness on the
margin, and discourage people who use land that could be awesome in the least
awesome ways.

------
kijin
Cash is the only payment method available today that is both distributed and
truly censorship-resistant. Anyone can pay cash to anyone else in exchange for
anything, without having to report to, or obtain permission from, any third
party. If nobody knows what you bought in the back alley last night, nobody
will ever find out.

You don't need fancy chunks of metal and plastic to use cash. You don't even
need electricity, much less an internet connection, to use it. A three-year-
old kid can use it just as well as one-hundred-and-three-year-old great-
grandma.

A lot of the time, you can't even tell whether the bills are genuine or not.
But that doesn't prevent billions of people around the world from exchanging
cash every day. And if dollars suddenly became untrustworthy, people will just
switch to another currency or fall back to crates of fish and shiny stones.

Compare that to cryptocurrencies that are being touted as the future of
distributed, "censorship-resistant" cash. Sure, they're distributed, but
censorship is as easy as cutting off the target's internet connection (or even
blocking some ports). If you're a dictator in North Africa, just flip the
switch and all the rebels are suddenly broke! Cryptocurrencies also require
everyone to broadcast every transaction to the whole world, and all it takes
is one mistake to connect a set of addresses to a real identity. Geeks can mix
their coins and hope there's no trail left, but good luck getting grandma to
use it correctly.

Programmers love to talk about elaborate ways to prevent double-spending and
whatnot. But in order to be a plausible replacement for cash, I think virtual
currencies need to solve some of these usability problems first. Spending a
few satoshis needs to become just as easy as pulling some quarters out of your
pocket.

~~~
meanduck
This is wrong. Cryptocurrencies can be freely exchanged with anyone, anywhere
unlike Cash which is only censorship-resistant for the transactions done in
person. Cryptocurrencies are more distributed in the sense that exchange rates
are set by market not central banks. This means cryptocurrencies can have more
permanent stability than cash. Though at the moment none of the
cryptocurrencies do. But as the adoption increases so will stability.

~~~
kijin
Cryptocurrencies are only censorship-resistant for people who can afford a
secure and well-maintained computing device and whose internet connection
cannot be arbitrarily blocked or filtered by governments and corporations.

On today's Earth, this group of people is vastly smaller than the number of
people who can carry out cash transactions in person, not just because of poor
adoption, but because of a fundamental UX problem.

Does it matter who sets the exchange rate when the more pressing concern is
who controls your ability to participate in the network in the first place?
You can set your own exchange rates, too, if you're really serious about it.
It will be $10 for this wad of marijuana, not $15 like this other guy says,
thank you very much.

~~~
meanduck
> Cryptocurrencies are only censorship-resistant for people who can afford a
> secure and well-maintained computing device

[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardware_wallet](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardware_wallet)

> and whose internet connection cannot be arbitrarily blocked or filtered by
> governments and corporations.

I am not aware of even one instance where bitcoin or anyother protocol has
been successfully blocked.

> On today's Earth, this group of people is vastly smaller than the number of
> people who can carry out cash transactions in person, not just because of
> poor adoption, but because of a fundamental UX problem.

Yet. There is no reason why cant UX be n00b-friendly or may be it already is.
Low adaption is probably due to either people are unaware or there is lot mis-
information. Anycase, adoption is steadly increasing.

> Does it matter who sets the exchange rate when the more pressing concern is
> who controls your ability to participate in the network in the first place?

Its not. None can control participation. Thats why dark markets deal in
bitcoin.

> You can set your own exchange rates, too, if you're really serious about it.
> It will be $10 for this wad of marijuana, not $15 like this other guy says,
> thank you very much.

Considering there are zillion laws regulating money flow between any given two
parties, I doubt it would look as appealing as a widely-accepted
crytocurrency.

------
sneak
I spoke at the CCC in 2011 about all the ways in which censorship-resistant
payments are essential to the various pillars of a free society.

[https://vimeo.com/27653912](https://vimeo.com/27653912)

It's still true. Without free payments, you cannot have free speech, free
association, or due process.

~~~
majewsky
Here's the same video on the CCC's site, where they won't track you:
[https://media.ccc.de/v/cccamp11-4591-financing_the_revolutio...](https://media.ccc.de/v/cccamp11-4591-financing_the_revolution-
en)

~~~
sneak
That webpage sends third party requests to oneandone.net, FYI - so they're
tracking you exactly no more or less than Vimeo is.

[http://mirror.eu.oneandone.net/projects/media.ccc.de/events/...](http://mirror.eu.oneandone.net/projects/media.ccc.de/events/camp2011/video/cccamp11-4591-financing_the_revolution-
en.mp4)

[http://mirror.netcologne.de/CCC/events/camp2011/video/cccamp...](http://mirror.netcologne.de/CCC/events/camp2011/video/cccamp11-4591-financing_the_revolution-
en.mp4)

You're telling me none of these keep web logs?

------
cm2187
For those of you who have parents/grand-parents who lived in Europe during
WW2, you should ask them what they think about the value of have some money
somewhere the government doesn't know anything about (whether it is cash or in
a foreign country). This is not a theoretical argument. Germany was a
democracy before the war. France too. Italy too.

~~~
ams6110
If you're going to do that, better be sure it's in something with hard value,
e.g. gold or silver because government can simply do something like declare
that the current currency is invalid and must be exchanged for new, thus
forcing everyone with hidden stashes to come forward or take the loss.

------
MikeNomad
GOV absolutely knew what the consequences / ripples of Choke Point would be.

They knew that it would generate support amongst the Vice Hating Crowd,
allowing GOV to address the two things they need most:

/ An easier way to issue debt with less scrutiny (Federal Reserve Notes are
quite specific debt instruments that we circulate, while GOV's debt load is
approaching untenable).

/ A more comprehensive way to track gun sales.

Many people do not trust various levels / types of government, and see gun
ownership as a necessary... hedge. Thankfully, the US has the option of The
Four Boxes of Governance: Soap, Jury, Ballot, Ammo.

Ultimately, laws and freedoms are maintained at the point of a gun. And it is
the Ammo Box, in the hands of The People, that allows the other three boxes to
be used.

------
rtpg
I agree with the sentiment of the title, but does the article really support
it?

Operation Choke Point (which, in the end, was just the gov't saying "hey,
these industries are dangerous") helped stopped Alexander's donations. But
it's not like it's easy to collect online payments in a cash-only society,
right? This is like saying "how the internet can embolden wiretapping". The
gov't action only increased through the technicality of increased technology.

The fact that Visa and MC responded to Sheriff Dart's letter is disturbing, to
say the least, though. Though saying the circuit decision is a first amendment
decision might be a stretch: It reads to me more like a mix of that and one
about abuse of public office.

So.... this article brings up issues that I think are extremely important
though. Visa and MC as payment processors basically reserve the right to not
service people. Is there a legitimate case for forcing them not to
discriminate? Do we need net neutrality for payments?

Someone will say "Bitcoin solves this!" but it doesn't, at least not until the
US government accepts tax payments in USD.

The biggest issue with "payment processor purity" would be the question of how
does that work with money laundering laws? There might not be a conflict: if
payment processors know who you are, that might be enough.

But seriously, Choke Point would have failed any first ammendment challenge if
banks wanted to challenge it. But they didn't, because banks believed what the
gov't was telling them, and also don't like high-risk, low-reward businesses.
Private enterprise is at the source of these issues!

Instead of worrying about Big Brother, I'd say this article is more about how
the government _should_ intervene to ensure 1st amendment rights in a cashless
society.

A side note that I feel is lost in these discussions: cashless societies (or
mixed cash/cashless, if you will) enable lots of people (like adult
entertainers, but also everyone on Patreon, for example) to live a life they
couldn't with cash-only universes. Even if cash is always there, we should
work to make cashless better than ever if possible.

------
mikerichards
The Atlantic almost used an euphemism for what the effects of a cashless
society would be like. I guess they didn't want to use the term "Big
Government". That might upset the "When I say Big Business, I mean bad" crowd.

The government is already using this to punish its enemies (political and
otherwise). You'll be a slave if this ever comes to pass.

But the real problem is that you have 40% of Democrats (or more) identify as
being socialists now. If you're a socialist then you just accept this, because
Big Brother/Big Government is what you want. You want Bernie Sanders to bring
in Big Government to punish.

The Republicans and Libertarians are spineless. They should be attacking
people like Cass Sunstein on a daily basis. Everyday the collectivists like
him should be called out and exposed for the totalitarian wannabes that they
really are.

------
Shivetya
Physical currency is privacy, it is freedom of commerce, it is property
rights. Giving up physical currency means giving up all your freedoms at once.
Simply because government can tell you what your money is worth at any
instant, where you can spend it, and if you can spend it or are required to do
so to not lose it

------
aub3bhat
Ultimately Big Brother needs Big taxes for Big spending out of its Big
wallet...

~~~
geggam
Nah... they just ask the Fed to p00f money ( debt ) into existence so they can
pay the bills with the no limit credit card. A little drama about the debt
ceiling and everything is all better.

~~~
baddox
No, you still need taxes. The fundamental reason the US dollar has value in
the global economy is that hundreds of millions of very wealthy people are
forced to pay taxes in that currency.

------
known
"Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its
laws." \--Rothschild in 1744

~~~
tome
It's unclear that this quotation is historical

[https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/7887/did-
rothsch...](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/7887/did-rothschild-
say-this-famous-quote-if-yes-what-did-he-mean-by-it)

------
homero
Bitcoin is the only way I can keep a little privacy anymore

~~~
kowdermeister
Cash still rules, it requires no electricity, you have to physically take it
away from me compared to exploiting a bug in some system.

Bitcoin is not bad, but it's still in the hands of a few privileged people,
who control the source code. Privacy only truly happens if you leave out
middle man, like Coinbase. Now, managing bitcion 100% yourself is a pain that
the general public simply won't do. Yes, you can do it, but you will find
yourself at the edge of a long tail.

It's fun to see how the most expensive social experiment will unfold.

~~~
jaekwon
Tendermint. It has different security characteristics, but the nice thing is,
it doesn't rely on extrinsic factors for security. It's not just BFT, it's
actually antifragile.

------
gitcommit
Bigger worry: What if a foreign agency can shutdown the American monetary
system because everything is digital?

------
joesmo
While the ability to censor people has increased tremendously, our
government's perverted interest in puritan idiocy seems unchanged for hundreds
of years. I just can't believe that who someone decides to have sex with is
still something the government insists on controlling. What a sick society we
live in and then have the audacity to call everyday natural actions "vice".
No, vice is that sheriff's sick obsession with other people's sexual
activities and his insistence on controlling them for his own sick pleasure.
Vice is indeed the public's willingness to accept and get pleasure based on
other people's pain. It's just amazing how much Americans love hurting each
other simply for the sake of suffering.

------
gkanai
Look at China, where WeChat Wallet and Alipay dominate cashless payments. It's
very good for the Chinese government that there are 2 large cashless payment
platforms that they can monitor/control.

------
geggam
Welcome to Bartertown.

------
peter303
I find it amusing the "share everything" generation goes the other way and
posts detailed diaries of their expenses online.

------
brunoqc
People don't care about privacy with a cashless society, they fear they'll
have to pay taxes like they should.

------
franbulax
Stash your cash! Use some of it to buy tangible gold and other things of value
like ammunition.

------
strooper
Every digital transaction is trackable throughout it's lifecycle. Every
transaction can be traced back to the origin even it changes hands several
times. An ideal government can make a good use of this feature to enforce law
for greater good, while a practical government, in reality, enforces whatever
suits the powerful ones the best.

~~~
pixl97
'Greater good' is a dangerous idea in itself. Centralized management rarely
realizes that the local maxima and global maxima often differ greatly.

