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I'm not worried about total bank surveillance at all, actually. I'm extremely worried about: * money that is programmed to be returned to the bank unless it is

I'm not worried about total bank surveillance at all, actually. I'm extremely worried about: * money that is programmed to be returned to the bank unless it is spent by X time * money that is programmed to only be spent on certain goods or services * high barriers to entry for businesses who want to allow money to be spent with them * unaccountable/summary de-monetisation of persons and businesses on the whim of a government * universal credit/benefits being issued as CBDC instead of fiat currency, creating a two-tier society where only the rich get access to fiat * money that can have its spending and issuing rules changed quickly and easily by the current government of the day

pjc50 4y ago
> money that is programmed to only be spent on certain goods or services The US food stamp system does this. > unaccountable/summary de-monetisation of persons and businesses on the whim of a government The US police seizure system does this; I submit that if this happens you have a serious rule-of-law problem and already, or are about to, have bigger problems. > universal credit/benefits being issued as CBDC instead of fiat currency, creating a two-tier society where only the rich get access to fiat This implies nonconvertibility?
- mitthrowaway2 4y ago
  Nonconvertibility is a forseeable next step. I imagine first there would be a fee for converting to cash (eg. if you "withdraw" 100 digital pounds, you get 90 paper ones). Then the decreasing popularity of paper pounds would be used as a basis for eliminating them entirely: going forward, paper pounds could be deposited for digital, but not withdrawn. Next, the bank starts applying negative interest rates when they need to "stimulate" asset prices and keep the stock market from crashing. No longer worried that people will pull cash out of their account to stuff under a mattress, your bank account starts dropping by 5% or 10% per year...
  - bsdz 4y ago
    > Next, the bank starts applying negative interest rates when they need to "stimulate" asset prices and keep the stock market from crashing. No longer worried that people will pull cash out of their account to stuff under a mattress, your bank account starts dropping by 5% or 10% per year... Can't they do this already by increasing money supply or QE? Central bank's can already create inflation which isn't dissimilar to negative interest rates.
    - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
      QE is effectively an interest-rate cut but for long-term bonds rather than short term. It would typically be used in conjunction with control of the overnight rate, which still struggles with the zero-lower-bound unless the ability to hold cash is removed from the system.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - mywittyname 4y ago
    > No longer worried that people will pull cash out of their account to stuff under a mattress, your bank account starts dropping by 5% or 10% per year... Why would they do this? There's already a much more streamlined legal mechanism for this: taxes. Plus, this isn't some new feature. If the government orders you assets frozen/seized, then a bank is going to comply with the order. > I imagine first there would be a fee for converting to cash (eg. if you "withdraw" 100 digital pounds, you get 90 paper ones). Again, not new. This is basically an ATM fee. Paper money has costs associated with it, whether that cost is paid explicitly (through fees) or behind the scenes (collecting fees from purchases, selling information about you to third parties, or "borrowing" your deposits to collect interest on it) is pretty much irrelevant. Nothing you're saying is a "new" feature of digital currency.
    - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
      Taxes are generally set in proportion to income, not savings. ATM fees are limited by competition to close to the bank's actual costs, rather than a deliberate policy to eliminate paper currency in circulation; if they charged upwards of 10% on withdrawals, people would very likely leave.
      - kwere 4y ago
        wealth taxes exist
        mitthrowaway2 4y ago
        For example? More importantly, this wouldn't be a tax on wealth, it would be a tax on savings, meaning it would disproportionately affect the less-wealthy and the less-credit-worthy, who tend to not own significant assets or have the borrowing power to buy them. In terms of the discrepancy with a wealth tax, imagine trying to save money to buy a house, except that the house price grows each year, due to negative interest rates, while your savings account shrinks by the same proportion. Perhaps it doesn't take much imagination, because it's similar to 2020's zero-interest-rate environment, but without the restraint of being bounded by zero.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- rkangel 4y ago
  > The US police seizure system does this; I submit that if this happens you have a serious rule-of-law problem and already, or are about to, have bigger problems. The US police seizure system already is a serious rule-of-law problem due to lack of accountability.
  - blitzar 4y ago
    > The US police seizure system already is a serious rule-of-law problem due to lack of accountability. The US police seizure system already is enshrined in the actual law. However, by the "rule-of-law" it is the law. The problem is that particular law, every single word of it.
avn2109 4y ago
> "* unaccountable/summary de-monetisation of persons and businesses on the whim of a government" This is A) a correct, valid worry and B) isomorphic to the "surveillance" thing, in the sense that the surveillance is just a means to an end. They mostly want the surveillance in order to demonetise the outgroup (however that outgroup is defined).
thedangler 4y ago
And it probably wont be open to the public to see the ledgers.
- moremetadata 4y ago
  Thats a good point, currently, with todays technology and changes to bank notes, it wouldn't be hard to take a photo of all the bank notes in someone's purse and wallet showing the bank notes serial number when it enters someone's possession. It will certainly reducing muggings and thefts if this activity took place. That image and bank note serial number can then be uploaded to a central, database where bank notes in various currency's can be geolocated and its movements tracked. You device and smartphone can equally form a distributed blockchain database by having your device share the data with those devices around them. When a bank note leaves someone's possession, the app can be notified of a possession change where the currency then enter's a dark web like state unless the bank note movement is into the possession of someone else using said app. Whether the banks and currency printers want to get on board with such idea in order to complete the introduction and retirement of bank notes in order to help build confidence in the currency, remains to be seen. Of course, if banks and currency printers dont want to get onboard with this public track and trace of the public's currency, then are they reducing confidence in the currency, in effect weakening or expiring the currency just like we see in this white paper and in China crypto currency experiments. Afterall, no one person can track and trace the bank notes that pass through their hands, we dont know just how bad counterfeiting of bank notes is. With todays tech, namely smartphones and an app, it would be possible to restore even increase confidence in a currency in a totally passive aggressive way! This would also be a way to decentralise existing currency's in todays form, as this app and photo of the bank serial numbers is like cryptocurrency miners and every photo becomes an entry in a Blockchain which would make it hard for any AI to replicate and highlight any physical currency counterfeiters. In other words, the public could become the pseudo cryptocurrency miners, and their participation would strengthen the currency they use. This way, the many benefits cited by the central planners like the Blank of England as done here, can be applied within days of this idea being made public. How quickly could you undermine other currency's like the Dollar or Euro if a population were to suddenly adopt this change of behaviour? Most people only ever have in their possession a fraction of the bank notes supposedly in circulation, and these officially circulated bank notes are only a fraction of the total money that exists in a currency. If you are familiar with this infographic https://traversals.com/blog/surface-web/ https://traversals.com/blog/surface-web/ you should understand that the serial number on your bank note is just the Surface Web, and that banks and central planners are the dark web! No one has a bank account which shows the bank note serial numbers entering or leaving your possession and no currency provides a means to currently track and trace all currency! Arguably its one giant fraud operating in plain sight! Why do people trust this situation?
euix 4y ago
"* money that is programmed to only be spent on certain goods or services" This is basically a rationing system, like the olden days in China and the Soviet Union, where it wasn't enough to have money, you also needed a ration coupon to buy the good. Everything was rationed not just food, but bolts of clothes, consumer goods of any type, electronics (if you were fortunate enough to be able to afford it). In this way the regime controlled scarcity and ensured loyalty and favoritism by awarding special rations and coupons for those who uphold the correct ideology and "meritorious labor". Each month your work unit issued a new ration book for the month that is based on your families' allotment of grains, cooking oil, clothing, soap, etc. If you are being a bad boy and you don't get your ration book for the month, you can't buy the goods in the state supply shop and have to go the black market. Thus pure money wasn't good enough to live well or even to survive in those systems - one needed connections and access and the authorities can cancel your access at any time. That is what a CBDC has the potential to evolve to and what worries me - a digital ration book. If all a CBDC is is digital cash, then we already have that system (Visa, e-payments, etc) and things won't change much but if a CBDC is a programmable form of money that can be disabled, inflated at will, turned off, or only allowed to buy certain goods - then there is no limit to the amount of tyranny that will be on hand. In a free country common people will not and should not accept it.
- rkangel 4y ago
  > If all a CBDC is is digital cash, then we already have that system (Visa, e-payments, etc) It has taken me a while today to get my head round this, but no we don't have digital cash. Visa, e-payments etc. are all claims on financial institutions (banks, payment providers etc.). Those banks then indirectly have a claim on the Central Bank currency for us. The only thing that gives private individuals a direct claim on CB currency is cash, which is increasingly less a part of society. This is the Bank of England (potentially) empowering private individuals and making us less beholden to banks.
  - neilwilson 4y ago
    There’s no difference in reality. If you have money in a U.K. building society or credit union they are two steps away from the Bank. All deposit takers in the U.K. are agents of the Bank.
dboreham 4y ago
> money that is programmed to be returned to the bank unless it is spent by X time Quick note that regular money works like this, although you might not realize this if you grew up in the USA since afaik it has never happened here. Governments re-issue all the money quite often. UK did it in 1971. India did it in 2016. It happened when the Euro was launched.
- roywiggins 4y ago
  Nigeria is just this week trying to do the same. I don't think it's going very well though. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-64566992 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-64566992
- febeling 4y ago
  All money (except for coins) is created in loans, which have a maturity date, at which "money is programmed to return to the bank", else you're forfeited. The monetary aggregate is ever-rotating, else all stops. It used to be 90 days, not sure now. At least that was the state of affairs until 2008. Since then the system is more or less in decay, at least by standards which where held before.
- Our_Benefactors 4y ago
  These have always come with the option to exchange old notes for new.
  - ihatepython 4y ago
    At which point they ask you where you got the money in the first place, prove where you got it from, and then make you pay taxes on that money.
    - yurishimo 4y ago
      Is there a threshold to get these kinds of questions? I've never had to explain where I got a ratty old $20 bill from. I'm also not trying to replace $4,000 in old bills either.
abigail95 4y ago
All of that makes the money have lower value, and is similar to how central banks manage money supply by making it easier and harder to get. The rest of it already exists for normal money. Tyrannical control over finance isn't a property of a digital currency, it's a property of the government. Your causality is backwards. A bad government will do that whether they have a digital currency or not, and a digital currency has no moral properties as it's just a tool. Whether a digital currency makes it easier at the margin to oppress people, I don't think it does. You can imagine how many headaches an imperfect implementation could cause. If the digital currency is so restricted that people would rather use cash, it will death spiral to zero as merchants who accept it can't trade it for full value to others. The only way around that would be for the govt to backstop it and trade 1:1 with cash, which would defeat the purpose of the restrictions.
- momirlan 4y ago
  according to this logic, total video surveillance is ok too, because it's just a tool. the government scanning all your private conversations is ok too, as long as the government is good. but all these could be used by a government to influence the voter behaviour such that they stay in power forever, China style. you are ready for communism.
  - omnicognate 4y ago
    It doesn't make those things OK because the argument against those things isn't that they enable the government to act in an authoritarian manner but that they are violations of individuals' right to privacy. Total surveillance is a bad thing in its own right. A CBDC is, as far as I've seen so far, not. And the argument that it should be seen as bad because it could be used for bad things by a bad government doesn't hold water, because preventing a CBDC wouldn't materially restrict the powers the government could wield if it were to become authoritarian. You're clearly convinced that governments slide inevitably towards authoritarianism and can only be prevented from doing so by practically restricting their powers, but it's a rather backwards way of thinking about things. An authoritarian government takes whatever powers it wants and wipes its arse with any rules that have been written to supposedly prevent it. If an authoritarian government thinks a CBDC will be useful it can just make one. Not that it would have to, because the government's existing powers are already sufficient to implement all the nefarious schemes people are worrying about in this thread. The way to avoid the threat of an authoritarian government is to have a fair and well run electoral system, a healthy national political dialogue and a well educated population (not that these things are easy), not to assume the government is inevitably going to go bad and block it from implementing useful policies in a futile attempt to curtail the powers of the dictatorship you've convinced yourself it will one day become.
octacat 4y ago
Basically every bad thing we've seen and tried with gacha games economics.
neilwilson 4y ago
CBDC is fiat currency. Everything else you state can already be done with the existing banking system. How do you think fraud stops work?
e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
> money that is programmed to be returned to the bank unless it is spent by X time We already have this: if you don't use your budget by xyz date, you lose it > money that is programmed to only be spent on certain goods or services Food stamps can only be spent on food, you must meet specific criteria for tax credits, etc. > high barriers to entry for businesses who want to allow money to be spent with them Some businesses will absolutely not take your money without extensive KYC already > unaccountable/summary de-monetisation of persons and businesses on the whim of a government Banks already arbitrarily shut down bank accounts with no recourse. > universal credit/benefits being issued as CBDC instead of fiat currency, creating a two-tier society where only the rich get access to fiat The whole point of money is that it's the common means of exchange, it's not very useful as money if only some people use it. > money that can have its spending and issuing rules changed quickly and easily by the current government of the day That's already the case today.
- d110af5ccf 4y ago
  > if you don't use your budget by xyz date, you lose it It doesn't apply to cash or my bank account. I do not want that to change. I will not support a tool that would enable this. > Food stamps can only be spent on food Those are not cash. Those are effectively gift cards for use at a grocery store. > you must meet specific criteria for tax credits, etc. Yet the tax credit is paid in cash. You can do with it as you will once you receive it. I will not support a tool that would change that. > Some businesses will absolutely not take your money without extensive KYC already The fact that a problem already exists is not an argument in support of making it worse. > Banks already arbitrarily shut down bank accounts with no recourse. Once again that doesn't justify actively making things worse. > The whole point of money is that it's the common means of exchange, it's not very useful as money if only some people use it. Many countries apply controls when converting to or from foreign currency. China in particular is known for this. Does that mean that their currency isn't useful to the people who live there? If the poor aren't permitted access to traditional cash they would have no choice but to use the CBDC whether they wanted to or not. At least aside from outright bartering, which is even less flexible. > > money that can have its spending and issuing rules changed quickly and easily by the current government of the day > That's already the case today. No, from the perspective of the individual it absolutely is not. If I have US cash or even a balance in a bank account in the US the government cannot "quickly and easily" modify the rules by which I can spend it. Particularly for paper cash their only options seem to be either to outlaw a particular sort of transaction and hope the police can enforce that (doesn't work, see drugs) or reissue the currency to force me to exchange it for something that they have more control over such as a CBDC.
Ekaros 4y ago
* unaccountable/summary de-monetisation of persons and businesses on the whim of a government I at least believe that governments have higher barrier than private entities that have already provably done this.

pjc50 4y ago

> money that is programmed to only be spent on certain goods or services The US food stamp system does this. > unaccountable/summary de-monetisation of persons and businesses on the whim of a government The US police seizure system does this; I submit that if this happens you have a serious rule-of-law problem and already, or are about to, have bigger problems. > universal credit/benefits being issued as CBDC instead of fiat currency, creating a two-tier society where only the rich get access to fiat This implies nonconvertibility?

mitthrowaway2 4y ago
Nonconvertibility is a forseeable next step. I imagine first there would be a fee for converting to cash (eg. if you "withdraw" 100 digital pounds, you get 90 paper ones). Then the decreasing popularity of paper pounds would be used as a basis for eliminating them entirely: going forward, paper pounds could be deposited for digital, but not withdrawn. Next, the bank starts applying negative interest rates when they need to "stimulate" asset prices and keep the stock market from crashing. No longer worried that people will pull cash out of their account to stuff under a mattress, your bank account starts dropping by 5% or 10% per year...
- bsdz 4y ago
  > Next, the bank starts applying negative interest rates when they need to "stimulate" asset prices and keep the stock market from crashing. No longer worried that people will pull cash out of their account to stuff under a mattress, your bank account starts dropping by 5% or 10% per year... Can't they do this already by increasing money supply or QE? Central bank's can already create inflation which isn't dissimilar to negative interest rates.
  - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
    QE is effectively an interest-rate cut but for long-term bonds rather than short term. It would typically be used in conjunction with control of the overnight rate, which still struggles with the zero-lower-bound unless the ability to hold cash is removed from the system.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mywittyname 4y ago
  > No longer worried that people will pull cash out of their account to stuff under a mattress, your bank account starts dropping by 5% or 10% per year... Why would they do this? There's already a much more streamlined legal mechanism for this: taxes. Plus, this isn't some new feature. If the government orders you assets frozen/seized, then a bank is going to comply with the order. > I imagine first there would be a fee for converting to cash (eg. if you "withdraw" 100 digital pounds, you get 90 paper ones). Again, not new. This is basically an ATM fee. Paper money has costs associated with it, whether that cost is paid explicitly (through fees) or behind the scenes (collecting fees from purchases, selling information about you to third parties, or "borrowing" your deposits to collect interest on it) is pretty much irrelevant. Nothing you're saying is a "new" feature of digital currency.
  - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
    Taxes are generally set in proportion to income, not savings. ATM fees are limited by competition to close to the bank's actual costs, rather than a deliberate policy to eliminate paper currency in circulation; if they charged upwards of 10% on withdrawals, people would very likely leave.
    - kwere 4y ago
      wealth taxes exist
      - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
        For example? More importantly, this wouldn't be a tax on wealth, it would be a tax on savings, meaning it would disproportionately affect the less-wealthy and the less-credit-worthy, who tend to not own significant assets or have the borrowing power to buy them. In terms of the discrepancy with a wealth tax, imagine trying to save money to buy a house, except that the house price grows each year, due to negative interest rates, while your savings account shrinks by the same proportion. Perhaps it doesn't take much imagination, because it's similar to 2020's zero-interest-rate environment, but without the restraint of being bounded by zero.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rkangel 4y ago
> The US police seizure system does this; I submit that if this happens you have a serious rule-of-law problem and already, or are about to, have bigger problems. The US police seizure system already is a serious rule-of-law problem due to lack of accountability.
- blitzar 4y ago
  > The US police seizure system already is a serious rule-of-law problem due to lack of accountability. The US police seizure system already is enshrined in the actual law. However, by the "rule-of-law" it is the law. The problem is that particular law, every single word of it.

avn2109 4y ago

> "* unaccountable/summary de-monetisation of persons and businesses on the whim of a government" This is A) a correct, valid worry and B) isomorphic to the "surveillance" thing, in the sense that the surveillance is just a means to an end. They mostly want the surveillance in order to demonetise the outgroup (however that outgroup is defined).

thedangler 4y ago

And it probably wont be open to the public to see the ledgers.

moremetadata 4y ago
Thats a good point, currently, with todays technology and changes to bank notes, it wouldn't be hard to take a photo of all the bank notes in someone's purse and wallet showing the bank notes serial number when it enters someone's possession. It will certainly reducing muggings and thefts if this activity took place. That image and bank note serial number can then be uploaded to a central, database where bank notes in various currency's can be geolocated and its movements tracked. You device and smartphone can equally form a distributed blockchain database by having your device share the data with those devices around them. When a bank note leaves someone's possession, the app can be notified of a possession change where the currency then enter's a dark web like state unless the bank note movement is into the possession of someone else using said app. Whether the banks and currency printers want to get on board with such idea in order to complete the introduction and retirement of bank notes in order to help build confidence in the currency, remains to be seen. Of course, if banks and currency printers dont want to get onboard with this public track and trace of the public's currency, then are they reducing confidence in the currency, in effect weakening or expiring the currency just like we see in this white paper and in China crypto currency experiments. Afterall, no one person can track and trace the bank notes that pass through their hands, we dont know just how bad counterfeiting of bank notes is. With todays tech, namely smartphones and an app, it would be possible to restore even increase confidence in a currency in a totally passive aggressive way! This would also be a way to decentralise existing currency's in todays form, as this app and photo of the bank serial numbers is like cryptocurrency miners and every photo becomes an entry in a Blockchain which would make it hard for any AI to replicate and highlight any physical currency counterfeiters. In other words, the public could become the pseudo cryptocurrency miners, and their participation would strengthen the currency they use. This way, the many benefits cited by the central planners like the Blank of England as done here, can be applied within days of this idea being made public. How quickly could you undermine other currency's like the Dollar or Euro if a population were to suddenly adopt this change of behaviour? Most people only ever have in their possession a fraction of the bank notes supposedly in circulation, and these officially circulated bank notes are only a fraction of the total money that exists in a currency. If you are familiar with this infographic https://traversals.com/blog/surface-web/ https://traversals.com/blog/surface-web/ you should understand that the serial number on your bank note is just the Surface Web, and that banks and central planners are the dark web! No one has a bank account which shows the bank note serial numbers entering or leaving your possession and no currency provides a means to currently track and trace all currency! Arguably its one giant fraud operating in plain sight! Why do people trust this situation?

euix 4y ago

"* money that is programmed to only be spent on certain goods or services" This is basically a rationing system, like the olden days in China and the Soviet Union, where it wasn't enough to have money, you also needed a ration coupon to buy the good. Everything was rationed not just food, but bolts of clothes, consumer goods of any type, electronics (if you were fortunate enough to be able to afford it). In this way the regime controlled scarcity and ensured loyalty and favoritism by awarding special rations and coupons for those who uphold the correct ideology and "meritorious labor". Each month your work unit issued a new ration book for the month that is based on your families' allotment of grains, cooking oil, clothing, soap, etc. If you are being a bad boy and you don't get your ration book for the month, you can't buy the goods in the state supply shop and have to go the black market. Thus pure money wasn't good enough to live well or even to survive in those systems - one needed connections and access and the authorities can cancel your access at any time. That is what a CBDC has the potential to evolve to and what worries me - a digital ration book. If all a CBDC is is digital cash, then we already have that system (Visa, e-payments, etc) and things won't change much but if a CBDC is a programmable form of money that can be disabled, inflated at will, turned off, or only allowed to buy certain goods - then there is no limit to the amount of tyranny that will be on hand. In a free country common people will not and should not accept it.

rkangel 4y ago
> If all a CBDC is is digital cash, then we already have that system (Visa, e-payments, etc) It has taken me a while today to get my head round this, but no we don't have digital cash. Visa, e-payments etc. are all claims on financial institutions (banks, payment providers etc.). Those banks then indirectly have a claim on the Central Bank currency for us. The only thing that gives private individuals a direct claim on CB currency is cash, which is increasingly less a part of society. This is the Bank of England (potentially) empowering private individuals and making us less beholden to banks.
- neilwilson 4y ago
  There’s no difference in reality. If you have money in a U.K. building society or credit union they are two steps away from the Bank. All deposit takers in the U.K. are agents of the Bank.

dboreham 4y ago

> money that is programmed to be returned to the bank unless it is spent by X time Quick note that regular money works like this, although you might not realize this if you grew up in the USA since afaik it has never happened here. Governments re-issue all the money quite often. UK did it in 1971. India did it in 2016. It happened when the Euro was launched.

roywiggins 4y ago
Nigeria is just this week trying to do the same. I don't think it's going very well though. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-64566992 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-64566992
febeling 4y ago
All money (except for coins) is created in loans, which have a maturity date, at which "money is programmed to return to the bank", else you're forfeited. The monetary aggregate is ever-rotating, else all stops. It used to be 90 days, not sure now. At least that was the state of affairs until 2008. Since then the system is more or less in decay, at least by standards which where held before.
Our_Benefactors 4y ago
These have always come with the option to exchange old notes for new.
- ihatepython 4y ago
  At which point they ask you where you got the money in the first place, prove where you got it from, and then make you pay taxes on that money.
  - yurishimo 4y ago
    Is there a threshold to get these kinds of questions? I've never had to explain where I got a ratty old $20 bill from. I'm also not trying to replace $4,000 in old bills either.

abigail95 4y ago

All of that makes the money have lower value, and is similar to how central banks manage money supply by making it easier and harder to get. The rest of it already exists for normal money. Tyrannical control over finance isn't a property of a digital currency, it's a property of the government. Your causality is backwards. A bad government will do that whether they have a digital currency or not, and a digital currency has no moral properties as it's just a tool. Whether a digital currency makes it easier at the margin to oppress people, I don't think it does. You can imagine how many headaches an imperfect implementation could cause. If the digital currency is so restricted that people would rather use cash, it will death spiral to zero as merchants who accept it can't trade it for full value to others. The only way around that would be for the govt to backstop it and trade 1:1 with cash, which would defeat the purpose of the restrictions.

momirlan 4y ago
according to this logic, total video surveillance is ok too, because it's just a tool. the government scanning all your private conversations is ok too, as long as the government is good. but all these could be used by a government to influence the voter behaviour such that they stay in power forever, China style. you are ready for communism.
- omnicognate 4y ago
  It doesn't make those things OK because the argument against those things isn't that they enable the government to act in an authoritarian manner but that they are violations of individuals' right to privacy. Total surveillance is a bad thing in its own right. A CBDC is, as far as I've seen so far, not. And the argument that it should be seen as bad because it could be used for bad things by a bad government doesn't hold water, because preventing a CBDC wouldn't materially restrict the powers the government could wield if it were to become authoritarian. You're clearly convinced that governments slide inevitably towards authoritarianism and can only be prevented from doing so by practically restricting their powers, but it's a rather backwards way of thinking about things. An authoritarian government takes whatever powers it wants and wipes its arse with any rules that have been written to supposedly prevent it. If an authoritarian government thinks a CBDC will be useful it can just make one. Not that it would have to, because the government's existing powers are already sufficient to implement all the nefarious schemes people are worrying about in this thread. The way to avoid the threat of an authoritarian government is to have a fair and well run electoral system, a healthy national political dialogue and a well educated population (not that these things are easy), not to assume the government is inevitably going to go bad and block it from implementing useful policies in a futile attempt to curtail the powers of the dictatorship you've convinced yourself it will one day become.

octacat 4y ago

Basically every bad thing we've seen and tried with gacha games economics.

neilwilson 4y ago

CBDC is fiat currency. Everything else you state can already be done with the existing banking system. How do you think fraud stops work?

e63f67dd-065b 4y ago

> money that is programmed to be returned to the bank unless it is spent by X time We already have this: if you don't use your budget by xyz date, you lose it > money that is programmed to only be spent on certain goods or services Food stamps can only be spent on food, you must meet specific criteria for tax credits, etc. > high barriers to entry for businesses who want to allow money to be spent with them Some businesses will absolutely not take your money without extensive KYC already > unaccountable/summary de-monetisation of persons and businesses on the whim of a government Banks already arbitrarily shut down bank accounts with no recourse. > universal credit/benefits being issued as CBDC instead of fiat currency, creating a two-tier society where only the rich get access to fiat The whole point of money is that it's the common means of exchange, it's not very useful as money if only some people use it. > money that can have its spending and issuing rules changed quickly and easily by the current government of the day That's already the case today.

d110af5ccf 4y ago
> if you don't use your budget by xyz date, you lose it It doesn't apply to cash or my bank account. I do not want that to change. I will not support a tool that would enable this. > Food stamps can only be spent on food Those are not cash. Those are effectively gift cards for use at a grocery store. > you must meet specific criteria for tax credits, etc. Yet the tax credit is paid in cash. You can do with it as you will once you receive it. I will not support a tool that would change that. > Some businesses will absolutely not take your money without extensive KYC already The fact that a problem already exists is not an argument in support of making it worse. > Banks already arbitrarily shut down bank accounts with no recourse. Once again that doesn't justify actively making things worse. > The whole point of money is that it's the common means of exchange, it's not very useful as money if only some people use it. Many countries apply controls when converting to or from foreign currency. China in particular is known for this. Does that mean that their currency isn't useful to the people who live there? If the poor aren't permitted access to traditional cash they would have no choice but to use the CBDC whether they wanted to or not. At least aside from outright bartering, which is even less flexible. > > money that can have its spending and issuing rules changed quickly and easily by the current government of the day > That's already the case today. No, from the perspective of the individual it absolutely is not. If I have US cash or even a balance in a bank account in the US the government cannot "quickly and easily" modify the rules by which I can spend it. Particularly for paper cash their only options seem to be either to outlaw a particular sort of transaction and hope the police can enforce that (doesn't work, see drugs) or reissue the currency to force me to exchange it for something that they have more control over such as a CBDC.

Ekaros 4y ago

* unaccountable/summary de-monetisation of persons and businesses on the whim of a government I at least believe that governments have higher barrier than private entities that have already provably done this.