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> "I deal only with my regulars … I refuse strangers." > ‘They are mostly strangers to us, and we just have to play it by ear in deciding whether to accept a c

> "I deal only with my regulars … I refuse strangers." > ‘They are mostly strangers to us, and we just have to play it by ear in deciding whether to accept a cheque’, said an official.” Sounds like a recipe for discrimination and inequality, which isn't mentioned in either article.

version_five 3y ago
Right, much better for everybody to be screwed in the name of equity.
- garba_dlm 3y ago
  and this is probably why and how it comes to pass that the taxpayer of the future is left holding the bills
- mlyle 3y ago
  While keeping something running via an informal system is better than nothing, and most people might be okay... if you're just kinda shifty looking or unpopular at the moment in your local pub and have a much harder time than everyone else, that's not exactly great. That is, it's not only the common experience that matters, but the outliers too. The basic tools of society should be available even if you're ugly, annoying, or a minority.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    This problem is far worse with a concentrated system than a decentralized one. If there are five local pubs and one of them won't have you, well, still four more. If there is only one bank and their loan officer doesn't like the cut of your jib, or their algorithm has decided to have a false positive, you're done. Though of course the modern problem isn't that there is only one bank, it's that there is only one bank regulator which subjects all of the banks to the same incentives, and if those rule you out you're effectively prohibited from using a bank in another jurisdiction with different rules. What you need for this is something permissionless.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      > This problem is far worse with a concentrated system than a decentralized one. They can break in different ways. If you're in an out-group or unpopular, it's not clear whether you're better off with n local pubs making a decision to accept your money informally or n/2 national banks making a decision while subject to oversight. In any case, this is a false premise: it's not like you're choosing from 5 local pubs. The question is whether the pub you attend likes you enough to take your check. > What you need for this is something permissionless. Far better to have things work okay without any other entity being involved, sure. But there are reasons why banks exist.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > If you're in an out-group or unpopular, it's not clear whether you're better off with n local pubs making a decision to accept your money informally or n/2 national banks making a decision while subject to oversight. What is clear, however, is that you're better off with both systems existing in parallel because then you can use either one, rather than having the informal one prohibited by law so that you're forced into the other one whether it works for you or not. > it's not like you're choosing from 5 local pubs. The question is whether the pub you attend likes you enough to take your check. You are choosing from 5 local pubs. Even if you don't attend one regularly, it's in the same town. You could have mates there who vouch for you. Or you go to the pub of the person who wrote the check, they confirm that they actually wrote it and then it gets cashed on the basis of their standing rather than yours. > Far better to have things work okay without any other entity being involved, sure. But there are reasons why banks exist. You want a regulated and insured entity where you can safely store your money, sure. That doesn't explain why they should have a monopoly on various other aspects of finance though. Or why they would even need a monopoly on that -- if you want the assurances you get from a regulated bank, there they are. If you want a permissionless money transfer system that anybody can use and nobody can be refused, why shouldn't that exist too?
        mlyle 3y ago
        > What is clear, however, is that you're better off with both systems existing in parallel because then you can use either one, rather than having the informal one prohibited by law so that you're forced into the other one whether it works for you or not. Yes, but we've never had that: pubs don't do banking under normal circumstances because they're outcompeted by the banks. > If you want a permissionless money transfer system that anybody can use and nobody can be refused, why shouldn't that exist too? I don't have a big objection to a parallel informal payment system. OTOH, these kinds of systems tend to have the problems that all the reddit alternatives have: they capture the least attractive and most problematic business because they only end up employed by an unusual subset of people. I guess the closest analog we have of what you describe at scale is hawala.
- dang 3y ago
  Could you please stop taking HN threads further into ideological battle? We had to warn you about this just the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37699522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37699522. It destroys what this site is for, so we end up having to ban accounts that keep doing it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
  - version_five 3y ago
    That seems awfully harsh, the comment I replied to had done the usual "let's find some reason this is discriminatory" thing and I was pushing back on it. I'm happy to stop commenting.
    - dang 3y ago
      It seems to me that your comment clearly broke the site guidelines and the GP comment clearly didn't. That's why I replied to the one and not the other. I also thought it best to note that we've already had to warn you repeatedly, and recently, to make sure that you have that information. I realize it sucks to get moderated, but this doesn't seem particularly harsh to me? I don't want you to stop commenting! I'm just asking you to stick to HN's rules when you do. Btw, there's a common bias that distorts basically everyone's judgment about this kind of thing (including mine, clearly): we underestimate our own harshness by, say, 10x, and overestimate the other's by another (say) 10x, and that compounds to a 100x distortion. I'd venture a guess that this is why your comment seemed to you like innocuous "pushing back", while it seemed to me like an obvious breaking of HN's rules. I don't know if that's helpful or not (probably not), but it's what came to mind.
tekla 3y ago
This seems like a very very good argument against decentralized currency.
ehnto 3y ago
1970s Ireland was very homogenous, which is to say white. It wasn't until the 90s that immigration began flowing in the other direction to a meaningful degree. So while I agree with you, it was unlikely a problem at the time. Although that doesn't cover gender or class discrimination so I suppose that was still an issue.
- kmonsen 3y ago
  Or more importantly in Ireland, religions based discrimination
  - fullspectrumdev 3y ago
    More so an issue in NI than RoI, even back then according to older relatives the division was a lot less in RoI.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    This is about the Republic of Ireland, where that wasn’t a huge factor (there was definitely some; comments in the newspapers from 1961 when Dublin got a Jewish mayor are eyebrow-raising, but it wouldn’t have been a huge issue for something like this). You’re thinking of Northern Ireland. That said, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Ireland in 1970 certainly did have other forms of discrimination which would’ve been much more relevant here.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      Interesting enough, one of Israel's presidents was an Irish Jew - Chaim Herzog [0]. If you listen to his speeches, you'd think you were listening to an announcer on RTE [1]. This has absolutely no bearing on the article and it's content. [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Herzog https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Herzog [1] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3BWL66PUf7c https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3BWL66PUf7c
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Oh, we absolutely still had discrimination, particularly against Travellers, but also there was very strong though largely unacknowledged classism. And then of course there were _women_; after a good start (Ireland was one of the first countries to grant equal universal suffrage), we spent the next few decades barely acknowledging that women were people. However, in 1970, people here just weren’t all that ‘banked’; when I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s, it was still fairly common for people to not have bank accounts, and certainly in 1970 postal savings accounts would have been more common than bank accounts. Today they’re ~universal (very few employers would consider paying by any means other than bank transfer) but it was a different story 50 years ago.

version_five 3y ago

Right, much better for everybody to be screwed in the name of equity.

garba_dlm 3y ago
and this is probably why and how it comes to pass that the taxpayer of the future is left holding the bills
mlyle 3y ago
While keeping something running via an informal system is better than nothing, and most people might be okay... if you're just kinda shifty looking or unpopular at the moment in your local pub and have a much harder time than everyone else, that's not exactly great. That is, it's not only the common experience that matters, but the outliers too. The basic tools of society should be available even if you're ugly, annoying, or a minority.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  This problem is far worse with a concentrated system than a decentralized one. If there are five local pubs and one of them won't have you, well, still four more. If there is only one bank and their loan officer doesn't like the cut of your jib, or their algorithm has decided to have a false positive, you're done. Though of course the modern problem isn't that there is only one bank, it's that there is only one bank regulator which subjects all of the banks to the same incentives, and if those rule you out you're effectively prohibited from using a bank in another jurisdiction with different rules. What you need for this is something permissionless.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    > This problem is far worse with a concentrated system than a decentralized one. They can break in different ways. If you're in an out-group or unpopular, it's not clear whether you're better off with n local pubs making a decision to accept your money informally or n/2 national banks making a decision while subject to oversight. In any case, this is a false premise: it's not like you're choosing from 5 local pubs. The question is whether the pub you attend likes you enough to take your check. > What you need for this is something permissionless. Far better to have things work okay without any other entity being involved, sure. But there are reasons why banks exist.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > If you're in an out-group or unpopular, it's not clear whether you're better off with n local pubs making a decision to accept your money informally or n/2 national banks making a decision while subject to oversight. What is clear, however, is that you're better off with both systems existing in parallel because then you can use either one, rather than having the informal one prohibited by law so that you're forced into the other one whether it works for you or not. > it's not like you're choosing from 5 local pubs. The question is whether the pub you attend likes you enough to take your check. You are choosing from 5 local pubs. Even if you don't attend one regularly, it's in the same town. You could have mates there who vouch for you. Or you go to the pub of the person who wrote the check, they confirm that they actually wrote it and then it gets cashed on the basis of their standing rather than yours. > Far better to have things work okay without any other entity being involved, sure. But there are reasons why banks exist. You want a regulated and insured entity where you can safely store your money, sure. That doesn't explain why they should have a monopoly on various other aspects of finance though. Or why they would even need a monopoly on that -- if you want the assurances you get from a regulated bank, there they are. If you want a permissionless money transfer system that anybody can use and nobody can be refused, why shouldn't that exist too?
      - mlyle 3y ago
        > What is clear, however, is that you're better off with both systems existing in parallel because then you can use either one, rather than having the informal one prohibited by law so that you're forced into the other one whether it works for you or not. Yes, but we've never had that: pubs don't do banking under normal circumstances because they're outcompeted by the banks. > If you want a permissionless money transfer system that anybody can use and nobody can be refused, why shouldn't that exist too? I don't have a big objection to a parallel informal payment system. OTOH, these kinds of systems tend to have the problems that all the reddit alternatives have: they capture the least attractive and most problematic business because they only end up employed by an unusual subset of people. I guess the closest analog we have of what you describe at scale is hawala.
dang 3y ago
Could you please stop taking HN threads further into ideological battle? We had to warn you about this just the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37699522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37699522. It destroys what this site is for, so we end up having to ban accounts that keep doing it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
- version_five 3y ago
  That seems awfully harsh, the comment I replied to had done the usual "let's find some reason this is discriminatory" thing and I was pushing back on it. I'm happy to stop commenting.
  - dang 3y ago
    It seems to me that your comment clearly broke the site guidelines and the GP comment clearly didn't. That's why I replied to the one and not the other. I also thought it best to note that we've already had to warn you repeatedly, and recently, to make sure that you have that information. I realize it sucks to get moderated, but this doesn't seem particularly harsh to me? I don't want you to stop commenting! I'm just asking you to stick to HN's rules when you do. Btw, there's a common bias that distorts basically everyone's judgment about this kind of thing (including mine, clearly): we underestimate our own harshness by, say, 10x, and overestimate the other's by another (say) 10x, and that compounds to a 100x distortion. I'd venture a guess that this is why your comment seemed to you like innocuous "pushing back", while it seemed to me like an obvious breaking of HN's rules. I don't know if that's helpful or not (probably not), but it's what came to mind.

tekla 3y ago

This seems like a very very good argument against decentralized currency.

ehnto 3y ago

1970s Ireland was very homogenous, which is to say white. It wasn't until the 90s that immigration began flowing in the other direction to a meaningful degree. So while I agree with you, it was unlikely a problem at the time. Although that doesn't cover gender or class discrimination so I suppose that was still an issue.

kmonsen 3y ago
Or more importantly in Ireland, religions based discrimination
- fullspectrumdev 3y ago
  More so an issue in NI than RoI, even back then according to older relatives the division was a lot less in RoI.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  This is about the Republic of Ireland, where that wasn’t a huge factor (there was definitely some; comments in the newspapers from 1961 when Dublin got a Jewish mayor are eyebrow-raising, but it wouldn’t have been a huge issue for something like this). You’re thinking of Northern Ireland. That said, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Ireland in 1970 certainly did have other forms of discrimination which would’ve been much more relevant here.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    Interesting enough, one of Israel's presidents was an Irish Jew - Chaim Herzog [0]. If you listen to his speeches, you'd think you were listening to an announcer on RTE [1]. This has absolutely no bearing on the article and it's content. [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Herzog https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Herzog [1] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3BWL66PUf7c https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3BWL66PUf7c
rsynnott 3y ago
Oh, we absolutely still had discrimination, particularly against Travellers, but also there was very strong though largely unacknowledged classism. And then of course there were _women_; after a good start (Ireland was one of the first countries to grant equal universal suffrage), we spent the next few decades barely acknowledging that women were people. However, in 1970, people here just weren’t all that ‘banked’; when I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s, it was still fairly common for people to not have bank accounts, and certainly in 1970 postal savings accounts would have been more common than bank accounts. Today they’re ~universal (very few employers would consider paying by any means other than bank transfer) but it was a different story 50 years ago.