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People buying masks in Hong Kong might disagree.

by beerandt 7y ago

pwinnski 7y ago
People buying masks in Hong Kong do so in person using cash.
- bufferoverflow 7y ago
  Do you speak for all the people who buy masks?
- VMG 7y ago
  cash will be banned in the future
  - pwinnski 7y ago
    Part of me thinks this is definitely something an authoritarian government would try to do, but then I wonder: how has this not happened already? Has it happened somewhere I've missed? I suspect that banning cash would result in an ad hoc barter system for goods and services. If people are engaging in economic activity they want to hide from the government, and find others willing to engage in the same activity, they'll probably work something out, right? Whether it's masks that could potentially hide someone from facial-recognition cameras or something else.
    - vageli 7y ago
      Yeah but then using a barter system is probably outlawed in those societies, which would have a chilling effect because you don't know if someone is safe to ask about the alternative method for fear of being reported. A casual interaction between shopkeeper and customer would never be facilitated by barter in such a hostile environment.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      > "I wonder: how has this not happened already?" It's the sort of thing you spend a few years normalizing instead of implementing in one fell swoop. Rapid changes unnerve people and a rapid elimination of cash could cause civil or economic unrest. I believe India has experimented with demonetizing larger bills, and in Sweden businesses that accept cash are becoming increasingly uncommon, as are people who use cash. When the majority no longer consider cash important, eliminating cash becomes safer. More people adopt the mentality that cash users are criminals with something to hide or generally just paranoid weirdos, and are consequently less likely to object when the use of cash is further restricted. Moreover, with fewer people using cash, the government has largely achieved their objective already. When few people use cash the haystack the needles are hidden in becomes much smaller.
    - VMG 7y ago
      > I suspect that banning cash would result in an ad hoc barter system for goods and services. Regular people who don't care about privacy or censorship resistance will use credit cards. This is in the interest of the powerful because you can easily disable service for undesirables. The rest will use Bitcoin
SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
Is the Hong Kong protests sponsored by Visa? If so I look forward to Morgan Freeman's next commercial. Even then it would seem to make sense to pay cash.
arcticbull 7y ago
Well, as this article points out, Bitcoin transactions aren't anonymous, they're pseudonymous. If they became popular, automated de-anonymization tools would sort this out. Further, nobody accepts Bitcoin for anything material, so you're going to get caught at your on-ramp and off-ramp.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  > Further, nobody accepts Bitcoin for anything material, That's partially true. Off the top of my head you can convert it to bullion fairly easily [1][2] and there are DNM cash out services on most DNMs too, a lot of trust there but if you spread it out over multiple vendors and smaller transactions you could convert it to physical cash. Each transaction increases your risk of detection by postal police and by just getting ripped off by the seller or the mail carrier though. [1] for example JM Bullion (and others) accept bitcoin https://www.jmbullion.com/buying-gold-silver-bitcoin-faq/ https://www.jmbullion.com/buying-gold-silver-bitcoin-faq/ [2] some sellers on /r/pmsforsale will accept bitcoin occasionally.

People buying masks in Hong Kong might disagree.

pwinnski 7y ago

People buying masks in Hong Kong do so in person using cash.

bufferoverflow 7y ago
Do you speak for all the people who buy masks?
VMG 7y ago
cash will be banned in the future
- pwinnski 7y ago
  Part of me thinks this is definitely something an authoritarian government would try to do, but then I wonder: how has this not happened already? Has it happened somewhere I've missed? I suspect that banning cash would result in an ad hoc barter system for goods and services. If people are engaging in economic activity they want to hide from the government, and find others willing to engage in the same activity, they'll probably work something out, right? Whether it's masks that could potentially hide someone from facial-recognition cameras or something else.
  - vageli 7y ago
    Yeah but then using a barter system is probably outlawed in those societies, which would have a chilling effect because you don't know if someone is safe to ask about the alternative method for fear of being reported. A casual interaction between shopkeeper and customer would never be facilitated by barter in such a hostile environment.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    > "I wonder: how has this not happened already?" It's the sort of thing you spend a few years normalizing instead of implementing in one fell swoop. Rapid changes unnerve people and a rapid elimination of cash could cause civil or economic unrest. I believe India has experimented with demonetizing larger bills, and in Sweden businesses that accept cash are becoming increasingly uncommon, as are people who use cash. When the majority no longer consider cash important, eliminating cash becomes safer. More people adopt the mentality that cash users are criminals with something to hide or generally just paranoid weirdos, and are consequently less likely to object when the use of cash is further restricted. Moreover, with fewer people using cash, the government has largely achieved their objective already. When few people use cash the haystack the needles are hidden in becomes much smaller.
  - VMG 7y ago
    > I suspect that banning cash would result in an ad hoc barter system for goods and services. Regular people who don't care about privacy or censorship resistance will use credit cards. This is in the interest of the powerful because you can easily disable service for undesirables. The rest will use Bitcoin

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago

Is the Hong Kong protests sponsored by Visa? If so I look forward to Morgan Freeman's next commercial. Even then it would seem to make sense to pay cash.

arcticbull 7y ago

Well, as this article points out, Bitcoin transactions aren't anonymous, they're pseudonymous. If they became popular, automated de-anonymization tools would sort this out. Further, nobody accepts Bitcoin for anything material, so you're going to get caught at your on-ramp and off-ramp.

ryanmercer 7y ago
> Further, nobody accepts Bitcoin for anything material, That's partially true. Off the top of my head you can convert it to bullion fairly easily [1][2] and there are DNM cash out services on most DNMs too, a lot of trust there but if you spread it out over multiple vendors and smaller transactions you could convert it to physical cash. Each transaction increases your risk of detection by postal police and by just getting ripped off by the seller or the mail carrier though. [1] for example JM Bullion (and others) accept bitcoin https://www.jmbullion.com/buying-gold-silver-bitcoin-faq/ https://www.jmbullion.com/buying-gold-silver-bitcoin-faq/ [2] some sellers on /r/pmsforsale will accept bitcoin occasionally.