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This is a writing style of heavy-handed satire that I’ve come to identify as “slippery slope porn”. I don’t really mind discussing or envisioning long term and

This is a writing style of heavy-handed satire that I’ve come to identify as “slippery slope porn”. I don’t really mind discussing or envisioning long term and worst case scenarios, but readers beware that you can play the same game with any numbers of existing policies that have not yet turned into the predicted dystopian fiction. Largely, I imagine, because in a democratic society there are feedback loops where individual opinions are taken into consideration in aggregate, even if it sometimes doesn’t feel like it. (everyone is in the minority group on some issue; your “why do they need an electronic currency grumble” is my “why don’t we have socialized healthcare grumble”)

pjc50 5y ago
Yeah, it's practically copypasta: a laundry list of made up situations from the fear profile of a particular group. However, in the past couple of weeks we've seen the seizure or devaluation of hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian assets as the result of the war, and a bunch of people have been put on sanctions lists with basically zero legal review or recourse. I wonder how things would have developed if Russia had a CBDC: what would happen to Western holders of it? (Note that the oligarchs aren't holding much of their fortune in actual physical folding money cash, that's too inconvenient once you get above the amount that fits in a safe. They've been keeping it in property, businesses, banks, bought politicians, and football clubs)
- hackernewds 5y ago
  > they've been keeping it in property... And now heavily in Tether, which is known infamously to have shady and little collateral. Help us all when the cryptocurrency system crumbles.