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> He worries that they enable illicit activity by making money transactions less transparent. Still, he sees the value in digital payments systems and supports
by bko 4y ago
> He worries that they enable illicit activity by making money transactions less transparent. Still, he sees the value in digital payments systems and supports electronic use of government-backed currencies like the dollar.
> “I’ve been a great advocate of moving to an electronic payments mechanism. There are a lot of efficiencies. I think we can actually have a better regulated economy if we had all the data in real time, knowing what people are spending,” he says.
This is almost written like a parody. Government backed electronic money is utterly dystopian to me. Imagine all the "nudges" that could easily be introduced. You're buying too much [bad thing], card declined. You're costing the health care system too much by being overweight so we'll restrict your food allowance. Your carbon emissions are over the limit this month, we'll have to deny your flight purchase. A gas station charges "too much" for gas, payment declined.
- andrenth 4y agohttps://theupheaval.substack.com/p/just-say-no-to-cbdcs https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/just-say-no-to-cbdcs
- adrianN 4y agoI would prefer something like GNU Taler over any cryptocurrency.
- outime 4y agoI'm afraid that's exactly how it's gonna turn out.
- igorkraw 4y agoWith natural monopolies like those promoted by the network effects crypto projects pin their hopes on the stable point is the same, minus democratic institutions ensuring some semblance of justice and equity.
- _ZeD_ 4y agoI'm pretty sure is more about money laundering than that.
- xtracto 4y agoAnd the security theatre in airports is more about terrorism. And not letting you pass that sunscreen bottle is about liquid bombs... There will always be a "reason" for the government to gain control over citizens.
- npc12345 4y agoThey'll never get it man. They want to government up their a$$. That's why I no longer argue with them, not as much as I used to. Every successful, cool and relaxed person Ive known in real life is against all of this shit.
- scoopertrooper 4y ago99% of retail payments already happen through a tightly regulated electronic payment system today. I haven't been denied my god given right to murder myself by purchasing tobacco and sugar products so far.
- ekianjo 4y ago> I haven't been denied my god given right to murder myself by purchasing tobacco and sugar products so far. The past does not predict the future
- bennysomething 4y agoYes but that data is fragmented, not on a giant immutable ledger.
- ceejayoz 4y agoIt's not that fragmented. Visa, Mastercard, and if you're being completionist, Amex and Discover. Four taps gets you virtually every credit card transaction in the Western world. Direct bank transfers are even more susceptible.
- bennysomething 4y agoAnd cash! :)
- 4y ago
- Tenoke 4y agoI agree but I actually wouldn't mind if carbon emissions and offsets were tracked and ensured to be not too negative. There are easier ways to do that though - e.g. just include money for offseting in the flight price.
- ekianjo 4y ago> carbon emissions and offsets were tracked and ensured to be not too negative including big exceptions for politicians who have no problem taking a plane every 2 days for no reason.
- freemint 4y agoNo, no, no need for that. It is an expense the tax payer pays for anyway. So no reason for exception for politicians
- ericd 4y agoIt’s even simpler than that - slap the carbon tax on the carbon source at time of extraction if it’s domestic, or at import time if it’s from a country that doesn’t do that itself at the same rate. The price changes will all flow downstream from there, and we don’t have a hairball of exemptions for eg jet fuel. And very pessimistic taxation estimates for materials and finished products from countries that don’t follow suit.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoYeah, but everything has to be progressive. We can't reduce emissions by taxing EVERYONE to reduce emissions. We have to try to squeeze 76% of the reductions from the top 1%. The problem is - if you ACTUALLY want to do something about emissions - they aren't as unevenly distributed as wealth. Everyone needs to cut back. And just like taxes - everyone is willing to raise taxes on someone else. Everyone is willing to force everyone else to cut their emissions. Hardly anyone wants their own taxes to go up, or reduce their own emissions.
- 4y ago
- eganist 4y ago> Imagine all the "nudges" that could easily be introduced. You're buying too much [bad thing], card declined. You're costing the health care system too much by being overweight so we'll restrict your food allowance. Your carbon emissions are over the limit this month, we'll have to deny your flight purchase. A gas station charges "too much" for gas, payment declined. Why would they do this when they can (and already do) use taxes and tax breaks to dis/incentivize behavior?
- ekianjo 4y ago> Why would they do this when they can (and already do) use taxes and tax breaks to dis/incentivize behavior? Because they can. You have never heard of government abuse before?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nverno 4y agoThe dis/incentive aspect is already abused, imo. If a small percentage of society participates in one activity, eg. smoking, it's too easy for the majority to tax the crap out of them to fund whatever activities they want.
- danaris 4y agoI'm really not sure invoking smoking as your boogeyman here is making the point you want it to. It's already very well known that the reason it remained unrestricted for so long is because the tobacco giants actively suppressed the studies that clearly showed how deadly it was, both for smokers and for the people around them. I don't think using something like sin taxes to discourage doing something that actively harms both you and anyone who has to share your air can reasonably be called an abuse of government power, unless you're one of the people who thinks that anything (besides maybe enforcing property rights) is an abuse of government power.
- nverno 4y ago
- boredumb 4y agoI find it alarming how authoritarianism and totalitarianism are perfectly acceptable views if people work in particular academic and political circles and mask it in the 'better regulation', 'better government' or other pro-government sentiment. It feels like a whole section of society is trying to shoehorn in a fully regulated society by playing coy and fooling large portions of society at large into believing it's going to be to their benefit by not being completely honest with the implications and historical outcomes of a totalitarian state.
- andrew_ 4y agoThis has been pushed with every hot-button topic, every tragedy, at every opportunity. What boggles my mind even more is how many people seem perfectly willing to step right in line and accept it.
- mushbino 4y agoWe live in a totalitarian state that's managed by corporations. In true American style, we outsource all of the things you just mentioned to the private sector, but they still very much happen just the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
- nine_k 4y agoIf you are smart, there is a strong temptation to start telling everyone how to behave, because they are, like, less smart, and do stupid and dangerous things. These simpletons should do what we, the smart bunch, say, for their own good! In some ancient books this is called hubris. It's a very real danger in any human interaction.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- AlanYx 4y agoA lot of academics honestly believe in the idea that we're smart enough now to do it better. I work periodically with one academic who wrote a recent book published by Harvard University Press on the history of German censorship prior to 1945 (and she has relatives who were killed in the Holocaust), and yet who is still a firm believer in current initiatives to censor the Internet to address harmful content. This "we're smarter now" is a kind of perpetual Achilles heel of academics dealing in policy. e.g., Chinese academics thought they were smarter now too just prior to the cultural revolution, and that they'd be able to steer the tiger they created in the students. They weren't, of course, and many of those academics ended up being targets.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Maf1 4y agoDavos have been pushing individual carbon trackers. "reached carbon quota.. access to flight/bus/car..denied!
- dpweb 4y agoThere’s 141 trillion of wealth in the US. 2 trillion is in currency. We already have digital money it’s called the US Dollar.
- jollybean 4y ago"Economists want real time data" --> "They are controlling our toughts!" 1) Please - enough with they hyperbole. Data is not the same as control. Yes - we should be wary, we don't want the government using our money to nudge us. At the same time we definitely want our governments using data to help us. There was a story in Canada about the government buying anonymoized cell tower data to understand our behaviours during a pandemic, misrepresented as 'they are trying to control us' - which is a disingenuous lie. Literally we're faced with a pandemic, we want to get rid of restrictions, the best way to do that is to know where and how COVID is spreading. We wouldn't bat an eye if some garbage advertising company bought that data. 2) "Government backed electronic money is utterly dystopian to me. I" Hyerbole. You already use 'Government Backed Electronic Money' - that the way it works and it works fine. It's 1000% better than 'Ponzi Scheme Money 80% Owned by Elon Musk' or 'Google Controlled Money'. And FYI - the 'Government Backed Money' we use today flows through VISA network and they are 100% selling every bit of your data to anyone who will buy. What you probably want is even stronger regulation of 'Gov Money' so that private entities cannot trace, transact or sell, i.e. even better privacy laws. And maybe some kind of legislation that forbids the Central Bank from doing anything other than targeting inflation/employment.
- yucky 4y ago>At the same time we definitely want our governments using data to help us. Speak for yourself, until the government shows it can be trusted. Their track record is awful, no thanks.
- jollybean 4y agoAgain, hyperbolic nonsense. Your government has millions of people working for it that do innumerable things from water works, electricity distribution and regulation, policing, defence. You already depend on them intimately. The naive, glib view that somehow 'we can't trust government' is blatantly contradicted by your very existed. We want to make sure oversight and controls are there, but it's bonkers to suggest we don't want health officials to understand how this pandemic played out, so that they can figure out how to deal with the next one.
- moistly 4y agoYou have declined to get a credit or debit card, I suppose? If not, you may want to check out the data a “Level 3” transactor provides regarding your purchases. Data the card company subsequently sells to insurance companies, etc. Tip: pay for your “sin” purchases with cash.
- alkonaut 4y agoGovernment backed and transparent doesn’t mean all my purchases are exposed. It’s (technically) possible to have a system of tokens where it’s only known how much I spend for example, but not where. Having (say) transactions under $1000 or $10000 anonymous would make a lot of sense as a cash replacement.