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> But this event is not about any of that stuff, really; this comes down to a question of fundamental freedoms and human rights It is not a fundamental freedom

> But this event is not about any of that stuff, really; this comes down to a question of fundamental freedoms and human rights It is not a fundamental freedom nor human right to be able to anonymously transfer money. Nor do you have a right for your code to be hosted at Github. I wish people would stop demeaning the real threat to human rights happening across the world.

aftbit 4y ago
Anonymously transferring money is key to exercising a bunch of fundamental freedoms (like freedom of speech), and the failure of the population as a whole to protect this right was a huge mistake. In this way it is similar to the right to private communications. (All my opinions of course)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
smabie 4y ago
I mean human rights are pretty arbitrary and people disagree. Think saying transferring money is a human right is as valid as any other right you come up with.
dannyw 4y ago
Is it not a fundamental freedom to be able to anonymously speak? (The Supreme Court thinks so). Why not money?
fleddr 4y ago
Disagree. I'm old enough to have experienced a largely cash-based society that was also virtually without any tracking. The government would know you exist, your school/work, and pretty much nothing else. The default was freedom, and it being up to the government to prove you're malicious, not the other way around. What I do in my private life and whom I transact with is my business, and not that of the government or 5,000 companies. If you think I'm cheating, come with a well documented warrant based on evidence. That was the mentality. Now we're cheering as we're accelerating into a digitized, centralized super authority that can wipe you out, or even an entire category of people, with the push of a button. You can't do that with cash. You'd have to actually visit thousands of people, do research on all, obtain a warrant, arrest them, process them, etc. All of this is absolutely about fundamental rights. I have no need for any mixers, but the attitude "guilty until proven innocent" isn't very pro-freedom.
- gamblor956 4y ago
  You must be in your 90s? And white? Because what you describe has not been a reality for minorities, ever, and certainly not within the lifetime of most people alive today. Cash bills have had serial numbers for decades. The Western governments have had the technical ability to track cash transactions for decades.
  - fleddr 4y ago
    I'm in my 40s, thank you very much. So that would be the 80s. My dad got paid in cash. You spent in cash. You give cash to friends, family. None of it was tracked. The government had no idea how much cash you had. Nobody had any idea what you spent it on or whom you gave it to. Absolutely unhinged to bring "white" into this. The entire world ran on cash decades ago. Especially in the developing world this is still partly true today. What exact point are you trying to make? Do you even know how a serial number on cash works? It doesn't tell you anything about transaction history as those are not logged. Even if you did do that, payments are anonymous so you can't track it back to a person. There were no cameras. The point of a serial number on cash is not tracking, it's flagging. When a bank got robbed and you know the serial numbers of the bills, you can monitor if somebody spends them.
    - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
      The bank secrecy act, which required financial institutions to start tracking and reporting to the government large or suspicious cash transactions, was passed in 1970. So unless your dad completely avoided banks, you are misinformed about what privacy he had. On the other hand, if he really did use cash for everything, you could do the same thing today. Nothing has changed on that front.
      - notch656a 4y ago
        When the bank secrecy act was passed, the cutoff was $10,000 (inflation adjusted ~$70,000) Since then, some of the fines for violating currency reporting have been adjusted for inflation. But curiously, the reporting cut off was not inflation adjusted and remains at $10,000. In 1970, thus, a 'large' transaction was one that exceeded the median family annual income. In 2022, a 'large' transaction is a beat up honda civic.
exolymph 4y ago
> It is not a fundamental freedom nor human right to be able to anonymously transfer money. So? I still want to be able to do it, as I can with physical cash. Besides, "fundamental freedom" and "human right" are semantic social constructs — what counts or not is quite malleable from polity to polity. Actual rights are natural rights, as in things that no one can realistically stop you from doing (suicide is perhaps the best example as the extreme of bodily autonomy; free speech somewhat falls into this category but it gets political as soon as there are publishing media involved beyond literal vocal speech)
phpisthebest 4y ago
So your coming from the position that we have a limited set of enumerated rights bestowed upon us by an all powerful government??
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  The idea of natural rights is frankly laughable. Humans have always had to fight for their rights. Democracy is the form of government where the fight is done at the ballot box. Seems pretty clear to me that the American people do not believe money transfer systems without AML/KYC are a right that people have.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    > Seems pretty clear to me that the American people do not believe money transfer systems without AML/KYC are a right that people have. Maybe it's just because of the area I grew up in, but nearly everyone I know that is from outside the city or government circles is strongly against AML/KYC. I'm nearly certain if you took a democratic vote of everyone in the US they'd vote against AML/KYC. Same goes for TSA, yet somehow they still exist.
    - colinmhayes 4y ago
      80% of the country lives in urban areas.
      - notch656a 4y ago
        There's an easy way to settle this. Do 51% of Americans want cash to be legal? If so, most Americans believe in having a money transfer system without AML/KYC.
        __d 4y ago
        In Australia, cash transactions of $10,000 or more must be reported to the government (AUSTRAC https://www.austrac.gov.au/ https://www.austrac.gov.au/). So ... cash can be anonymous, but only up to a certain point. Making multiple transactions of $9999.99 is possible, but it does invite perhaps unwelcome scrutiny.

aftbit 4y ago

Anonymously transferring money is key to exercising a bunch of fundamental freedoms (like freedom of speech), and the failure of the population as a whole to protect this right was a huge mistake. In this way it is similar to the right to private communications. (All my opinions of course)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

smabie 4y ago

I mean human rights are pretty arbitrary and people disagree. Think saying transferring money is a human right is as valid as any other right you come up with.

dannyw 4y ago

Is it not a fundamental freedom to be able to anonymously speak? (The Supreme Court thinks so). Why not money?

fleddr 4y ago

Disagree. I'm old enough to have experienced a largely cash-based society that was also virtually without any tracking. The government would know you exist, your school/work, and pretty much nothing else. The default was freedom, and it being up to the government to prove you're malicious, not the other way around. What I do in my private life and whom I transact with is my business, and not that of the government or 5,000 companies. If you think I'm cheating, come with a well documented warrant based on evidence. That was the mentality. Now we're cheering as we're accelerating into a digitized, centralized super authority that can wipe you out, or even an entire category of people, with the push of a button. You can't do that with cash. You'd have to actually visit thousands of people, do research on all, obtain a warrant, arrest them, process them, etc. All of this is absolutely about fundamental rights. I have no need for any mixers, but the attitude "guilty until proven innocent" isn't very pro-freedom.

gamblor956 4y ago
You must be in your 90s? And white? Because what you describe has not been a reality for minorities, ever, and certainly not within the lifetime of most people alive today. Cash bills have had serial numbers for decades. The Western governments have had the technical ability to track cash transactions for decades.
- fleddr 4y ago
  I'm in my 40s, thank you very much. So that would be the 80s. My dad got paid in cash. You spent in cash. You give cash to friends, family. None of it was tracked. The government had no idea how much cash you had. Nobody had any idea what you spent it on or whom you gave it to. Absolutely unhinged to bring "white" into this. The entire world ran on cash decades ago. Especially in the developing world this is still partly true today. What exact point are you trying to make? Do you even know how a serial number on cash works? It doesn't tell you anything about transaction history as those are not logged. Even if you did do that, payments are anonymous so you can't track it back to a person. There were no cameras. The point of a serial number on cash is not tracking, it's flagging. When a bank got robbed and you know the serial numbers of the bills, you can monitor if somebody spends them.
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    The bank secrecy act, which required financial institutions to start tracking and reporting to the government large or suspicious cash transactions, was passed in 1970. So unless your dad completely avoided banks, you are misinformed about what privacy he had. On the other hand, if he really did use cash for everything, you could do the same thing today. Nothing has changed on that front.
    - notch656a 4y ago
      When the bank secrecy act was passed, the cutoff was $10,000 (inflation adjusted ~$70,000) Since then, some of the fines for violating currency reporting have been adjusted for inflation. But curiously, the reporting cut off was not inflation adjusted and remains at $10,000. In 1970, thus, a 'large' transaction was one that exceeded the median family annual income. In 2022, a 'large' transaction is a beat up honda civic.

exolymph 4y ago

> It is not a fundamental freedom nor human right to be able to anonymously transfer money. So? I still want to be able to do it, as I can with physical cash. Besides, "fundamental freedom" and "human right" are semantic social constructs — what counts or not is quite malleable from polity to polity. Actual rights are natural rights, as in things that no one can realistically stop you from doing (suicide is perhaps the best example as the extreme of bodily autonomy; free speech somewhat falls into this category but it gets political as soon as there are publishing media involved beyond literal vocal speech)

phpisthebest 4y ago

So your coming from the position that we have a limited set of enumerated rights bestowed upon us by an all powerful government??

colinmhayes 4y ago
The idea of natural rights is frankly laughable. Humans have always had to fight for their rights. Democracy is the form of government where the fight is done at the ballot box. Seems pretty clear to me that the American people do not believe money transfer systems without AML/KYC are a right that people have.
- notch656a 4y ago
  > Seems pretty clear to me that the American people do not believe money transfer systems without AML/KYC are a right that people have. Maybe it's just because of the area I grew up in, but nearly everyone I know that is from outside the city or government circles is strongly against AML/KYC. I'm nearly certain if you took a democratic vote of everyone in the US they'd vote against AML/KYC. Same goes for TSA, yet somehow they still exist.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    80% of the country lives in urban areas.
    - notch656a 4y ago
      There's an easy way to settle this. Do 51% of Americans want cash to be legal? If so, most Americans believe in having a money transfer system without AML/KYC.
      - __d 4y ago
        In Australia, cash transactions of $10,000 or more must be reported to the government (AUSTRAC https://www.austrac.gov.au/ https://www.austrac.gov.au/). So ... cash can be anonymous, but only up to a certain point. Making multiple transactions of $9999.99 is possible, but it does invite perhaps unwelcome scrutiny.