6 ms·

He got a huge break at sentencing. Assuming the cash economy will be greatly reduced in the year 2029, and tech deeply entrenched in nearly everything we do, h

He got a huge break at sentencing. Assuming the cash economy will be greatly reduced in the year 2029, and tech deeply entrenched in nearly everything we do, how will it be possible to live "underground," either out of necessity or a desire to stay anonymous?

ci5er 7y ago
Pre-paid debit cards. Also - buy from preppers. It's not like an iPhone with Facebook is a necessity. If you are looking for food, shelter and maybe a library, I don't think it is that hard. Maybe a little hermit-ey, but pretend you are living as a 1919 Wyoming homesteader, and you are still living a pretty decent (from 1750s standards) life!
- ilamont 7y ago
  I'm thinking that the streets of 2029 will be covered by cameras and scanners with ubiquitous recognition and tracking capabilities, and financial transactions will be much easier for government officials to access and monitor. Can a person like Waymond get by in an urban area like Oakland? I'm not seeing it. Maybe, like you say, living as a 1919 homesteader in the middle of nowhere is possible, but that's not an option for people who need access to employment, family members, etc.
  - ci5er 7y ago
    Ah, well, I grew up 60 miles from the closest town, and 10 miles away from the closest neighbor, and the house didn't have a phone until I left for school at 15, so I guess my standards for acceptable-levels-of-existence are not up to the modern urban standards. I mean, all we did was grow our own food, and sell some of the excess to pay for land taxes and energy/fuel. And, no, I am not a boomer.
    - jlokier 7y ago
      In 2029, with cash no longer accepted by major vendors including government, and with ubiqutous tracking of individual's physical movements and financial transactions, so most people won't want the repurcussions of dealing with you even if they could, how are you going to be able to sell any of your food and use it to pay for land taxes?
  - dan-robertson 7y ago
    I’m thinking the streets of 2029 will be quite a lot like the streets of 2019. I don’t expect a massive change in surveillance or technology. I wouldn’t be surprised to see fewer cars (especially outside America). I expect the social problems would be different but I can’t guess how they would be different.
    - DougN7 7y ago
      I think we’d be surprised what is already here. You can’t drive a stolen car through a medium town in Kansas (Lenexa) without the police chasing you down before you get out of town. Kansas!
      - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        You can drive a car with an illegitimate foreign license plate down I95 through some of the most authoritarian parts of the northeast without being bothered. There's a lot more luck involved than the people selling the dragnets would have you believe. That said, I still am not a fan of all this surveillance.
        JabavuAdams 7y ago
        So, ah, you can't just leave us hanging...
        dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        Quebec doesn't put registration year stickers on their plates so there's no way to tell without running the plate whether it's valid. If you just need to get a shitbox that moves under its own power from A to B it's a pretty cheap way to do it.
    - LeifCarrotson 7y ago
      Do you think the streets of 2019 are similar to the streets of 2009?
- cantrevealname 7y ago
  > Pre-paid debit cards One major problem is that all your transactions with that debit card are now linked together. If you buy a cell phone with that card, all your calls, texts, and Internet activity get linked. If you buy a cab ride or bus ticket or subway pass, your travel is now linked. It would be extremely inconvenient and expensive to buy separate debit cards for every transaction. (Expensive because (a) there might be a card purchase fee and (b) you'll end up leaving residual amounts on each card after a single purchase per card.) Furthermore, how would you pay for the pre-paid debit card? With cash of course. But as cash is becoming rarer, it's likely that the only way to buy a pre-paid card will be with a transaction from another card or account, linking it to other digital accounts. So you'll have a small degree of privacy with a pre-paid card, but nothing close to true anonymity. There seems no way out of the surveillance universe as cash is marginalized.
  - ci5er 7y ago
    I find your predictions of the death of non-digital fungible currency to be unlikely, but, who knows! We'll see, I guess.
    - jlokier 7y ago
      It's started in a few places. Whether it will end up widespread remains to be seen. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422422 "I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer. I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't accepted at the festival anyway). When I could get someone to pay for me directly, transferring the money back to them was hard (since the festival didn't have any ATMs), so I had to go through the whole burdensome SWIFT procedure with getting their bank account number, their full name and address, their bank info, IBAN number of their bank etc, so I could send the money back when I got home to Norway. Utopia my ass."
jerry1979 7y ago
I would imagine crypto could fill this void.
- ColanR 7y ago
  Crypto is easily traceable.
  - helpPeople 7y ago
    Some are. The ones that aren't, I'm starting to feel bullish on.
    - ColanR 7y ago
      For myself, I think there's enough information available that something like the FBI could still trace even monero.
      - nickthemagicman 7y ago
        I'm wondering how they can trace it if you buy it from an ATM with a mask on, or via a VPN on a battery powered raspberry pi you put in the ceiling of a coffeeshop, then you tumble it constantly. Even if they break the Monero encryption, and the tumbling, it's a dead end at the point of purchase.
rosybox 7y ago
I'm glad he got a break, for his sake and his family's, but if he had turned himself in in 2005 he would probably still be in prison. I like that this sentence encourages people to turn themselves in though, but I feel like it also rewarded him for running from the law. I think our sentencing is too harsh even for violent criminals. Even once violent people can change their life around.
- sysbin 7y ago
  I cannot make a choice that's truly my own when confined in a system and without my choice being effected by the system. More simply put everything is predetermined. So I think our sentencing is fundamentally too harsh when we're punishing humans that didn't have control over their birth into a life that will have whatever outcome that cannot change. I think the justice system should keep that in mind when designing the process it functions under. Although I think people prefer ignorance instead of reality.
  - RaceWon 7y ago
    > sentencing is fundamentally too harsh when we're punishing humans that didn't have control over their birth into a life that will have whatever outcome You need to spend a few nights in lock up. I did once in NYC during a holiday weekend. I wasn't scared because I can defend myself --really well... ridiculously well actually. But I asked one fellow what he was in for (Never Ever Do That btw), and he said casually "I offded some nigger". Maybe it was self defense like he said, IDK. But people who live on the fringes Are different then those who don't, and if they feel violence or the threat of violence is a solution to the problem, then that's the path they take. Typically I don't get fucked with--something in my gaze cuts off that shit 99.99% of the time, but not always, and I count myself as lucky the few times serious shit went down in my life, I didn't lose. Sounds like you carry a gun or are also strong, can read patterns at a glance and are really good with your hands. Most people aren't like us though.
    - IIAOPSW 7y ago
      I spent a night in central booking for arson (charges were latter dropped). I got the impression at any given time the people in there are 60% DUI, 30% domestic abuse, 10% everything else. I didn't see anyone being "fucked with". That part must come after indictment if you aren't simply released and given a court date. How big of a difference is it between central and rikers?

ci5er 7y ago

Pre-paid debit cards. Also - buy from preppers. It's not like an iPhone with Facebook is a necessity. If you are looking for food, shelter and maybe a library, I don't think it is that hard. Maybe a little hermit-ey, but pretend you are living as a 1919 Wyoming homesteader, and you are still living a pretty decent (from 1750s standards) life!

ilamont 7y ago
I'm thinking that the streets of 2029 will be covered by cameras and scanners with ubiquitous recognition and tracking capabilities, and financial transactions will be much easier for government officials to access and monitor. Can a person like Waymond get by in an urban area like Oakland? I'm not seeing it. Maybe, like you say, living as a 1919 homesteader in the middle of nowhere is possible, but that's not an option for people who need access to employment, family members, etc.
- ci5er 7y ago
  Ah, well, I grew up 60 miles from the closest town, and 10 miles away from the closest neighbor, and the house didn't have a phone until I left for school at 15, so I guess my standards for acceptable-levels-of-existence are not up to the modern urban standards. I mean, all we did was grow our own food, and sell some of the excess to pay for land taxes and energy/fuel. And, no, I am not a boomer.
  - jlokier 7y ago
    In 2029, with cash no longer accepted by major vendors including government, and with ubiqutous tracking of individual's physical movements and financial transactions, so most people won't want the repurcussions of dealing with you even if they could, how are you going to be able to sell any of your food and use it to pay for land taxes?
- dan-robertson 7y ago
  I’m thinking the streets of 2029 will be quite a lot like the streets of 2019. I don’t expect a massive change in surveillance or technology. I wouldn’t be surprised to see fewer cars (especially outside America). I expect the social problems would be different but I can’t guess how they would be different.
  - DougN7 7y ago
    I think we’d be surprised what is already here. You can’t drive a stolen car through a medium town in Kansas (Lenexa) without the police chasing you down before you get out of town. Kansas!
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      You can drive a car with an illegitimate foreign license plate down I95 through some of the most authoritarian parts of the northeast without being bothered. There's a lot more luck involved than the people selling the dragnets would have you believe. That said, I still am not a fan of all this surveillance.
      - JabavuAdams 7y ago
        So, ah, you can't just leave us hanging...
        dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        Quebec doesn't put registration year stickers on their plates so there's no way to tell without running the plate whether it's valid. If you just need to get a shitbox that moves under its own power from A to B it's a pretty cheap way to do it.
  - LeifCarrotson 7y ago
    Do you think the streets of 2019 are similar to the streets of 2009?
cantrevealname 7y ago
> Pre-paid debit cards One major problem is that all your transactions with that debit card are now linked together. If you buy a cell phone with that card, all your calls, texts, and Internet activity get linked. If you buy a cab ride or bus ticket or subway pass, your travel is now linked. It would be extremely inconvenient and expensive to buy separate debit cards for every transaction. (Expensive because (a) there might be a card purchase fee and (b) you'll end up leaving residual amounts on each card after a single purchase per card.) Furthermore, how would you pay for the pre-paid debit card? With cash of course. But as cash is becoming rarer, it's likely that the only way to buy a pre-paid card will be with a transaction from another card or account, linking it to other digital accounts. So you'll have a small degree of privacy with a pre-paid card, but nothing close to true anonymity. There seems no way out of the surveillance universe as cash is marginalized.
- ci5er 7y ago
  I find your predictions of the death of non-digital fungible currency to be unlikely, but, who knows! We'll see, I guess.
  - jlokier 7y ago
    It's started in a few places. Whether it will end up widespread remains to be seen. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422422 "I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer. I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't accepted at the festival anyway). When I could get someone to pay for me directly, transferring the money back to them was hard (since the festival didn't have any ATMs), so I had to go through the whole burdensome SWIFT procedure with getting their bank account number, their full name and address, their bank info, IBAN number of their bank etc, so I could send the money back when I got home to Norway. Utopia my ass."

jerry1979 7y ago

I would imagine crypto could fill this void.

ColanR 7y ago
Crypto is easily traceable.
- helpPeople 7y ago
  Some are. The ones that aren't, I'm starting to feel bullish on.
  - ColanR 7y ago
    For myself, I think there's enough information available that something like the FBI could still trace even monero.
    - nickthemagicman 7y ago
      I'm wondering how they can trace it if you buy it from an ATM with a mask on, or via a VPN on a battery powered raspberry pi you put in the ceiling of a coffeeshop, then you tumble it constantly. Even if they break the Monero encryption, and the tumbling, it's a dead end at the point of purchase.

rosybox 7y ago

I'm glad he got a break, for his sake and his family's, but if he had turned himself in in 2005 he would probably still be in prison. I like that this sentence encourages people to turn themselves in though, but I feel like it also rewarded him for running from the law. I think our sentencing is too harsh even for violent criminals. Even once violent people can change their life around.

sysbin 7y ago
I cannot make a choice that's truly my own when confined in a system and without my choice being effected by the system. More simply put everything is predetermined. So I think our sentencing is fundamentally too harsh when we're punishing humans that didn't have control over their birth into a life that will have whatever outcome that cannot change. I think the justice system should keep that in mind when designing the process it functions under. Although I think people prefer ignorance instead of reality.
- RaceWon 7y ago
  > sentencing is fundamentally too harsh when we're punishing humans that didn't have control over their birth into a life that will have whatever outcome You need to spend a few nights in lock up. I did once in NYC during a holiday weekend. I wasn't scared because I can defend myself --really well... ridiculously well actually. But I asked one fellow what he was in for (Never Ever Do That btw), and he said casually "I offded some nigger". Maybe it was self defense like he said, IDK. But people who live on the fringes Are different then those who don't, and if they feel violence or the threat of violence is a solution to the problem, then that's the path they take. Typically I don't get fucked with--something in my gaze cuts off that shit 99.99% of the time, but not always, and I count myself as lucky the few times serious shit went down in my life, I didn't lose. Sounds like you carry a gun or are also strong, can read patterns at a glance and are really good with your hands. Most people aren't like us though.
  - IIAOPSW 7y ago
    I spent a night in central booking for arson (charges were latter dropped). I got the impression at any given time the people in there are 60% DUI, 30% domestic abuse, 10% everything else. I didn't see anyone being "fucked with". That part must come after indictment if you aren't simply released and given a court date. How big of a difference is it between central and rikers?