
More phones, few banks, instability are transforming Somalia to cashless society - thoughtfox
http://qz.com/625258/more-phones-few-banks-and-years-of-instability-are-transforming-somalia-to-a-cashless-society/
======
pmontra
The article is light on details. It looks like EVC is acting as a bank but how
do you enter money in the system? Example: I'm going there tomorrow (not
really) with a 100 USD bill, then what? It seems I have to buy one of these
vouchers
[http://mogaguide.com/comp_catalog/index.php?ct=1&q=2&in=2&id...](http://mogaguide.com/comp_catalog/index.php?ct=1&q=2&in=2&id=290&zoom=1&kno=27.0176.003.01)
I wonder if there is a way to turn what will be left back to cash.

In any case, it's not like everybody is its own bank. There is one company
doing the bank for everyone.

~~~
genedickson
I live in California and you are wrong. They use federal reserve notes like
everybody else.

------
narrator
The legal medical marijuana people in California have to do everything with
cash because they can't get bank accounts[1]. This is a sly way for the
federal government to drive industries out of business that they don't like,
even if they are legal on the state level. They are doing this explicitly with
Operation Chokepoint.[2]

1.[http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/16/medical-
marij...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/16/medical-marijuana-
dispensaries-california-tax-cash-only)

2.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point)

~~~
superuser2
>legal medical marijuana

There is no such thing as legal medical marijuana. The repealing of a state
statute doesn't make something "legal" when it is still prohibited by federal
statute, as marijuana is. It's simply a federal offense that this
administration chooses not to prosecute vigorously.

~~~
Osiris
Some states do have laws that explicitly allow and/or regular marijuana for
medicinal or recreational use. For example, I live in Colorado where a
constitutional amendment was passed that required law makers to pass laws to
setup regulations for the production, wholesale, and retail sale of the drug.

The part about the federal law is still true but as far as I know, law
enforcement in Colorado is not required nor can be forced to enforce federal
law.

~~~
mschuster91
> The part about the federal law is still true but as far as I know, law
> enforcement in Colorado is not required nor can be forced to enforce federal
> law.

But the FBI can very well decide to prosecute federal crimes in states, even
if the "crime" is legal under state law.

~~~
jsprogrammer
And a jury can decide that no crime was committed.

~~~
mschuster91
For this there needs to be a jury trial, which is unlikely to happen if police
/ DA pushes for a plea bargain...

~~~
eru
Can't you always refuse the plea bargain?

------
frik
Cash is freedom. No one spies on what you do with your cash money.

Hopefully this electronic-only-money utopia won't get traction. We can see
already with the encryption trojan programs that ask for Bitcoins/altcoins to
decrypt your data - something like that wouldn't be reasonable and work on a
large scale with cash.

~~~
Symbiote
“People are doing business without any fear of losing cash to militants or
conmen,” Aden said. “The country’s telecommunications sector has undergone a
rapid rise, fueled by intense competition amongst the numerous
telecommunication firms that dominate the country.”

Cash is freedom to be robbed, so I don't think that will convince anyone in
Somalia.

I checked my bank statement this morning. I withdrew DKK 300 ($45) on 16
January, and still have 100kr left. I have no fear of being robbed though. You
should argue against Scandinavia, and some other countries in Europe.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Indeed. The problem with some hardcore libertarians, among others, is that
they want "freedom" to be #1 on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and become
confused or angry when others disagree. If you want people to want freedom--
and you should!--you need to start by guaranteeing their basic physical safety
and survival. "Live Free or Die" makes for a catchy bumper sticker, but if
what you offer is the "freedom" to watch your family starve, most people would
actually prefer a bit of oppression, and I can't really fault them for that.

~~~
crusso
Your analysis indicates that you're stuck on the dimension of individuality vs
collectivism whereby libertarian solutions would somehow be inferior to
socialist ones.

The real problems in Somalia lie along dimensions of corruption and violence.
The biggest gains that they could make as a society would be to reduce the
value of corruption and violence as a means to an end. Possibly that reduction
comes in the form of free markets that create a vibrant economy that their
people become incentivized to protect. Possibly, some more socialist
democratic processes could take hold that appeals to their cultural tendencies
to help one another. Probably some mixture of those forces could help to
create a new Somalian society.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I'm saying that if you want people to agree with your philosophy, whatever it
is, you have to make it relevant to them. Frik seemed to think that Somalians
should give up day-to-day security, including financial and physical safety,
in order to protect themselves from hypothetical monitoring by a government
that currently can't even provide basic law enforcement. In the environment
Frik lives in, government monitoring is a reality and frequent robbery is not,
and he naively assumes that his priorities can be applied everywhere
unchanged.

------
cup
I know the minister for Telecommunications in Somalia. I asked him to do an
AMA on hackernews but there was no interest.

~~~
Mankhool
I'm very interested in finding out how to pay people in the third world as
well as others with no bank account (10% of Americans don't have one). Please
see if he will answer questions. I want to know how it works, how widespread
it is in Africa, if they are rolling it out in other countries etc.

~~~
nommm-nommm
What's your questions about Americans without bank accounts? I grew up poor so
I knew plenty of people growing up without bank accounts. I can answer most
questions.

------
iofj
Given how AT&T acts now one can only imagine how they'd act with control of
the money supply.

~~~
baddox
Well, we have another cabal in control of the money supply. Sorry, I just
watched The Big Short. :)

------
genedickson
The U.S. has been a cashless society for generations. Few people even know
what cash is. They think federal reserve notes are cash. They are not. Alaska
has cash in circulation and you can spend it at any business, though the
scales are out of sight until you break out the cash. They can make change in
cash or federal reserve notes. Federal reserve notes are the middle ground
between digital currency and cash. I've never seen anyone spend cash in the
lower 48. I'm sure that Somali currency is not cash either.

~~~
eru
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means
just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said
Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The
question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

[LEWIS CARROLL (Charles L. Dodgson), Through the Looking-Glass, chapter 6, p.
205 (1934). First published in 1872.]

