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The government already has high degrees of insight into and control over the money of most people in the UK. Most people in the UK (in my experience, at least)

The government already has high degrees of insight into and control over the money of most people in the UK. Most people in the UK (in my experience, at least) couldn't care less about the day to day privacy implications of banking, it's not on their radar. The suggestion that this would enable the government to monitor more might be strictly true because it enables new types of monitoring, but that is already practically true in every way for most people. I find it difficult to understand why a digital pound is anything more than an incremental improvement (or worsening from your perspective). What does a digital pound enable the government to do that would interfere with the everyday person's life, that isn't already possible? (Also, cigarette prohibitions and social credit scoring are hot button issues for people who believe in the sanctity of individual rights but they're not at all related in the context of this discussion. There's nothing terrifying about a cigarette prohibition to most people, especially in the UK, where we've literally had various cigarette restrictions imposed over the years to the point where a NZ style prohibition would probably not even register for almost everyone.)

realce 4y ago
So your opinion is that the UK gov't has plenty of terrifying control over people's bank accounts, so a little bit more is a-ok?
- phphphphp 4y ago
  My point is that it's hyperbolic to describe a digital pound as terrifying. A person may take issue with modern day banking granting the ability for people to be surveilled, and they might take issue with the UK's PAYE system which requires employers report their employee's income to the tax authority in real(ish) time... but that's nothing to do with a digital pound. A digital pound is a small incremental change in the context of privacy, and so ranting and raving about a digital pound being terrifying is the wrong target. People could waste years of their lives ranting and raving about the horrors of a digital pound, and convince the government to abandon all plans... and nothing about the actual privacy of day to day people would change.
  - jackson1442 4y ago
    Agreed. A better question- how can we build a government which we can trust with unprecedented levels of centralized information? The centralization of information is going to happen one way or another (the powers that be wouldn't have it any other way), and we've already been on this trajectory. So how can we build a system that actually respects privacy and upholds the common good?
    - artificialLimbs 4y ago
      >> respects privacy and upholds the common good? That's not how consolidation of power by a government works.
    - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
      >> The centralization of information is going to happen one way or another This is not necessarily the case, thanks to encryption, which plays on the side of the weak. A weak can encrypt data that a strong can never decrypt.
      - walterbell 4y ago
        > a strong can never decrypt Is "a weak" using an encryption random number generator that was designed by "a weak" or "a strong"?
        jkepler 4y ago
        One can generate one's private keys by physically rolling dice and choosing words, thus avoiding the problem of rigged random number generators. The government still doesn't control physics (or economic laws, come to think of it!).
        walterbell 4y ago
        > physically rolling dice Thanks for the reminder to buy (in person) and secure dice against physical tampering!
djfobbz 4y ago
You must not know anything about the Digital Yuan being tried out in China and the kind of restrictions it comes with...for example: expiring currency, spend it by mm/dd/yyyy or loose it! Oh dear govt, give it to me harder. Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/digital-currency-yuan-comes-with-an-expiry-date-spend-or-it-will-vanish/vi-AA12ze8O https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/digital-currency-yuan-c...
- walterbell 4y ago
  UK, June 2021, https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/bank-of-england-tells- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/bank-of-england-tells- > Tom Mutton, a director at the Bank of England, said during a conference on Monday that programming could become a key feature of any future central bank digital currency ... what happens if one of the participants in a transaction puts a restriction on [future use of the money]? ... Sir Jon Cunliffe, a deputy Governor at the Bank, said digital currencies could be programmed for commercial or social purposes ... “You could think of giving your children pocket money, but programming the money so that it couldn’t be used for sweets. There is a whole range of things that money could do, programmable money, which we cannot do with the current technology.”
  - akomtu 4y ago
    "... children ... money ... sweets ..." that's some neuro-linguistic programming right here: the sir-jon skillfully inserts thin needles into the three spots and the patient becomes a willing veggie.
    - walterbell 4y ago
      > sir-jon [-athan] Good catch. Need a browser plugin that converts text to phoenetically similar terms.
      - akomtu 4y ago
        It's from one movie where two knights fought for some high title: "I've been made a knight, but not a single time have you addressed me by Sir. I demand respect!" - "My apologies, Sir... Jon."
User23 4y ago
There's no nice way to say this, so I'm going to be blunt. You and people like you are part of the problem here. You are why this kind of overreach is even on the table.
- phphphphp 4y ago
  I’m fine with that, because I’m responsible as part of the majority. The majority don’t care about any of this. There are far greater issues facing real people, and getting lathered up into a froth over something that has no material impact on the day to day lives of most people is not a productive use of time. Any doom-mongering about a hypothetical future in which The Government is doing Bad Things because they know what you’re doing with your money is, well, ignoring the thousands of bad things that we don’t need to theorise about because they’re happening at this very moment. For example, our government has starved our national health service over the last decade and there are very real threats to its long term survival: I care orders of magnitude more about that than I care about the hypothetical world in which the government make money expire or deduct from my social score because I exceeded my quota of beans at the grocery store this week.
Spooky23 4y ago
Opposition to cigarette bans is usually just reactionary nonsense or grousing from people selling the cigarettes. Gold standard advocates passionately debated about terrible problems with silver in the 19th century. Crypto demonstrated that digital cash has value - even when that is backed by various grifts.

realce 4y ago

So your opinion is that the UK gov't has plenty of terrifying control over people's bank accounts, so a little bit more is a-ok?

phphphphp 4y ago
My point is that it's hyperbolic to describe a digital pound as terrifying. A person may take issue with modern day banking granting the ability for people to be surveilled, and they might take issue with the UK's PAYE system which requires employers report their employee's income to the tax authority in real(ish) time... but that's nothing to do with a digital pound. A digital pound is a small incremental change in the context of privacy, and so ranting and raving about a digital pound being terrifying is the wrong target. People could waste years of their lives ranting and raving about the horrors of a digital pound, and convince the government to abandon all plans... and nothing about the actual privacy of day to day people would change.
- jackson1442 4y ago
  Agreed. A better question- how can we build a government which we can trust with unprecedented levels of centralized information? The centralization of information is going to happen one way or another (the powers that be wouldn't have it any other way), and we've already been on this trajectory. So how can we build a system that actually respects privacy and upholds the common good?
  - artificialLimbs 4y ago
    >> respects privacy and upholds the common good? That's not how consolidation of power by a government works.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
    >> The centralization of information is going to happen one way or another This is not necessarily the case, thanks to encryption, which plays on the side of the weak. A weak can encrypt data that a strong can never decrypt.
    - walterbell 4y ago
      > a strong can never decrypt Is "a weak" using an encryption random number generator that was designed by "a weak" or "a strong"?
      - jkepler 4y ago
        One can generate one's private keys by physically rolling dice and choosing words, thus avoiding the problem of rigged random number generators. The government still doesn't control physics (or economic laws, come to think of it!).
        walterbell 4y ago
        > physically rolling dice Thanks for the reminder to buy (in person) and secure dice against physical tampering!

djfobbz 4y ago

You must not know anything about the Digital Yuan being tried out in China and the kind of restrictions it comes with...for example: expiring currency, spend it by mm/dd/yyyy or loose it! Oh dear govt, give it to me harder. Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/digital-currency-yuan-comes-with-an-expiry-date-spend-or-it-will-vanish/vi-AA12ze8O https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/digital-currency-yuan-c...

walterbell 4y ago
UK, June 2021, https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/bank-of-england-tells- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/bank-of-england-tells- > Tom Mutton, a director at the Bank of England, said during a conference on Monday that programming could become a key feature of any future central bank digital currency ... what happens if one of the participants in a transaction puts a restriction on [future use of the money]? ... Sir Jon Cunliffe, a deputy Governor at the Bank, said digital currencies could be programmed for commercial or social purposes ... “You could think of giving your children pocket money, but programming the money so that it couldn’t be used for sweets. There is a whole range of things that money could do, programmable money, which we cannot do with the current technology.”
- akomtu 4y ago
  "... children ... money ... sweets ..." that's some neuro-linguistic programming right here: the sir-jon skillfully inserts thin needles into the three spots and the patient becomes a willing veggie.
  - walterbell 4y ago
    > sir-jon [-athan] Good catch. Need a browser plugin that converts text to phoenetically similar terms.
    - akomtu 4y ago
      It's from one movie where two knights fought for some high title: "I've been made a knight, but not a single time have you addressed me by Sir. I demand respect!" - "My apologies, Sir... Jon."

User23 4y ago

There's no nice way to say this, so I'm going to be blunt. You and people like you are part of the problem here. You are why this kind of overreach is even on the table.

phphphphp 4y ago
I’m fine with that, because I’m responsible as part of the majority. The majority don’t care about any of this. There are far greater issues facing real people, and getting lathered up into a froth over something that has no material impact on the day to day lives of most people is not a productive use of time. Any doom-mongering about a hypothetical future in which The Government is doing Bad Things because they know what you’re doing with your money is, well, ignoring the thousands of bad things that we don’t need to theorise about because they’re happening at this very moment. For example, our government has starved our national health service over the last decade and there are very real threats to its long term survival: I care orders of magnitude more about that than I care about the hypothetical world in which the government make money expire or deduct from my social score because I exceeded my quota of beans at the grocery store this week.

Spooky23 4y ago

Opposition to cigarette bans is usually just reactionary nonsense or grousing from people selling the cigarettes. Gold standard advocates passionately debated about terrible problems with silver in the 19th century. Crypto demonstrated that digital cash has value - even when that is backed by various grifts.