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> Everyone with a IQ above double figures can see it's one power outage away from food riots. In this scenario where people are desperate to do a food riot, a

> Everyone with a IQ above double figures can see it's one power outage away from food riots. In this scenario where people are desperate to do a food riot, a power outage has occurred for multiple consecutive days if not at least a week. In which case, something truly apocalyptic is happening, in which case I doubt people would be civilized enough to bargain for food for useless cash or shavings of gold, in that scenario resources are the only useful 'cash'. In this scenario, it's likely it'd be some sort of national emergency and I'd imagine most people have enough food in their pantries to tide them over until the government provides food or restores power. Modern power infrastructure is incredibly resilient and outages are usually localized to regions and power is restored within hours. I understand the idea of using cash for privacy reasons or keeping few hundred just in case, but keeping with cash just in case a food riot happens is wholly unconvincing.

jjav 3y ago
> Modern power infrastructure is incredibly resilient and outages are usually localized to regions and power is restored within hours. This comes across as a very sheltered view I have to say. Modern systems are very fragile, as they get ever more complicated combined with less and less appetite by utilities to spend on redundancy and disaster preparedness (cuts into profits). > In this scenario where people are desperate to do a food riot, a power outage has occurred for multiple consecutive days if not at least a week. In 2017 hurricane Maria left Puerto Rico without power for many weeks (in many areas) and multiple months (in some parts) (or even a few years in most remote areas). Society goes on, but you'll be well served to have cash. While that was a major hurricane, electricity outages of like a week are quite common with smaller storms.
throwup238 3y ago
> In which case, something truly apocalyptic is happening, Like some bad weather? I'd argue that accurately describes swathes of Texas just a few years ago. Some areas lost power for days.
- Infinity315 3y ago
  Yes, but remember in this scenario people are desperate enough to riot for food. In this scenario, this is not just bad weather it's bad enough that it has become nearly logistically impossible for a developed nation to transfer enough resources to the people living in this region. In this scenario, why would I trade the food which I need now for cash? I don't care about a potentially large payoff in the future when my immediate needs are not met.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    I don't see what point you're trying to make here. Are you saying that you would not give anyone else food? So you accept that no one else will give you food? Basically all transactions should stop? Or are you saying that transactions should not bother being counted. Everyone just takes what they say they need wherever they can find it? What is the guiding argument or thesis here?
    - Infinity315 3y ago
      > Are you saying that you would not give anyone else food? Imagine the point at which my neighbour is willing to riot for food. That means his neighbour is also likely willing to riot for food and so on and so forth. This also means I'm likely willing to riot for food. I am not trading my last couple of meals of which I don't know when I'll get for a thousands or even hundreds of thousands dollars. The point is if it gets bad enough that people immediate needs are not met, cash or money means very little. No matter how much of it you have, if you are at the point where you're rioting for food, there is likely not enough food for you or your neighbour who also doesn't know when they'll get their next meal. Do you think there will exist a point at which a person would much prefer food in their hand than even larger sums of cash? My point is that when a food riot occurs is when cash becomes worth less than food.
  - u32480932048 3y ago
    It doesn't require a catastrophic siege-like environment; it just requires that electronic payment systems be unusable (e.g., a cyberattack). Having cash means you'll be one of the people buying food that weekend, and not stuck in line at ATMs or simply unable to purchase food until the card system comes back online. Maybe you need plywood and tarps and a few people to help. Maybe your workplace was flattened, but there's plenty to do - I'd rather get cash at the end of the day than a bunch of canned goods, unless I'm truly out of food and it's truly scarce. I can use that cash for other things like fuel, or stuff that was lost because my house was flattened. But in a scenario where people are desperate enough to riot for food, there will likely be shortages of other stuff, too. I'd assume it's more intuitive and fair to convert fuel-to-dollars and dollars-to-bread than fuel-to-bread, or days-wages-to-soup, which is the whole point of money anyway.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
The the greatest respect, I don't think you have studied how these things unfold in practice. In all security scenarios having defence in depth, including maintaining secondary and tertiary systems greatly slows down a decline. The problem for a society that worships efficiency and convenience is that security feels like a luxury too expensive to maintain. That becomes a rationalisation to say things like "that will never happen". Or psychological 'splitting' ; "If the power goes off we're all screwed anyway, so why even try to prevent needless massive loss of life as an interim posture" > Modern power infrastructure is incredibly resilient and outages I'm sorry but you've been exposed to wishful thinking. I've a masters degree on my desk from an MoD student who did a thesis on black start and lockout scenarios as part of national security research (sorry I am unable to share it but you can dig up the same stuff from any published civilian university these days). I don't wish to be alarmist but there is a great deal to be concerned about and a great amount our governments and engineers need to do to secure things here in the UK and in the US.
- jameshart 3y ago
  Surely if you want to predict how resilient ‘cashless’ societies are to systemic shocks, you could do worse than to to look at Ukraine, where I think it’s fair to say power and network infrastructure underpinning digital payments have had a challenging operational environment for a few years now, and people have every reason to flee to the most secure and trustworthy ways of transacting. So what’s happening there? Reversion to a cash economy? Not really. > In 2023, most card-based transactions in Ukraine were cashless despite the full-scale war... cashless card-based transactions accounted for 65% of the total amount of card-based transactions last year, up from 61% in the pre-war year 2021. https://bank.gov.ua/ua/news/all/drugiy-rik-povnomasshtabnoyi-viyni-obsyagi-bezgotivkovih-rozrahunkiv-zrostayut https://bank.gov.ua/ua/news/all/drugiy-rik-povnomasshtabnoyi... > In Ukraine, digital payments have become mainstream with 60% of payments with Mastercard cards being made digitally today, ... For five years running, Ukraine has ranked among the top 10 countries worldwide at Mastercard by the number of NFC payments using digital cards. https://www.mastercard.com/news/eemea/en/perspectives/en/2023/leading-the-digital-payments-evolution-in-ukraine/ https://www.mastercard.com/news/eemea/en/perspectives/en/202...
zer00eyz 3y ago
I live in CA. You're supposed to have an earthquake preparedness kit, that includes water, in bottles. Do you know what happens the first moment there's anything that resembles a disaster... All the water gets bought up, because no one bothers being prepared. Your average gas station gets gas delivered once a day (or more). Gas delivery stops, were screwed pretty quick. The point being, the world is far far more brittle than anyone understands.
- Infinity315 3y ago
  What odds would you give on something like payment infrastructure failing for 3 or more consecutive days happening in a year or 10 years?
  - jjav 3y ago
    For it to happen just means 3 days without power/internet. 100% certainty.
  - zer00eyz 3y ago
    Payment infrastructure? All of it? Some of it? Recently we had this: https://codeofmatt.com/list-of-2024-leap-day-bugs/ https://codeofmatt.com/list-of-2024-leap-day-bugs/ So a day for a grocery chain in Sweden and a gas station chain in New Zealand. For me "There is a 3 out of 4 chance of a damaging earthquake in the Bay Area in the next 30 years." From: https://www.earthquakeauthority.com/blog/2020/san-francisco-bay-area-earthquake-prediction-risk https://www.earthquakeauthority.com/blog/2020/san-francisco-... Is this a week of no power (so no cc's, no atm, no cell service). A cornal mass ejection has 1 in 194 odds, is it bad enough that it's a grid killer? I don't know what the odds are for that (as in having EMP), and its gonna be fun if we see it coming to! A major payment processor failing, or payment network failing for a few days is possible. What happens when a grocery chain is open and suddenly "cash only". It has happened before. You dont need a big, or national event where social order is maintained but cash is essential to keeping things moving.
    - Infinity315 3y ago

jjav 3y ago

> Modern power infrastructure is incredibly resilient and outages are usually localized to regions and power is restored within hours. This comes across as a very sheltered view I have to say. Modern systems are very fragile, as they get ever more complicated combined with less and less appetite by utilities to spend on redundancy and disaster preparedness (cuts into profits). > In this scenario where people are desperate to do a food riot, a power outage has occurred for multiple consecutive days if not at least a week. In 2017 hurricane Maria left Puerto Rico without power for many weeks (in many areas) and multiple months (in some parts) (or even a few years in most remote areas). Society goes on, but you'll be well served to have cash. While that was a major hurricane, electricity outages of like a week are quite common with smaller storms.

throwup238 3y ago

> In which case, something truly apocalyptic is happening, Like some bad weather? I'd argue that accurately describes swathes of Texas just a few years ago. Some areas lost power for days.

Infinity315 3y ago
Yes, but remember in this scenario people are desperate enough to riot for food. In this scenario, this is not just bad weather it's bad enough that it has become nearly logistically impossible for a developed nation to transfer enough resources to the people living in this region. In this scenario, why would I trade the food which I need now for cash? I don't care about a potentially large payoff in the future when my immediate needs are not met.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  I don't see what point you're trying to make here. Are you saying that you would not give anyone else food? So you accept that no one else will give you food? Basically all transactions should stop? Or are you saying that transactions should not bother being counted. Everyone just takes what they say they need wherever they can find it? What is the guiding argument or thesis here?
  - Infinity315 3y ago
    > Are you saying that you would not give anyone else food? Imagine the point at which my neighbour is willing to riot for food. That means his neighbour is also likely willing to riot for food and so on and so forth. This also means I'm likely willing to riot for food. I am not trading my last couple of meals of which I don't know when I'll get for a thousands or even hundreds of thousands dollars. The point is if it gets bad enough that people immediate needs are not met, cash or money means very little. No matter how much of it you have, if you are at the point where you're rioting for food, there is likely not enough food for you or your neighbour who also doesn't know when they'll get their next meal. Do you think there will exist a point at which a person would much prefer food in their hand than even larger sums of cash? My point is that when a food riot occurs is when cash becomes worth less than food.
- u32480932048 3y ago
  It doesn't require a catastrophic siege-like environment; it just requires that electronic payment systems be unusable (e.g., a cyberattack). Having cash means you'll be one of the people buying food that weekend, and not stuck in line at ATMs or simply unable to purchase food until the card system comes back online. Maybe you need plywood and tarps and a few people to help. Maybe your workplace was flattened, but there's plenty to do - I'd rather get cash at the end of the day than a bunch of canned goods, unless I'm truly out of food and it's truly scarce. I can use that cash for other things like fuel, or stuff that was lost because my house was flattened. But in a scenario where people are desperate enough to riot for food, there will likely be shortages of other stuff, too. I'd assume it's more intuitive and fair to convert fuel-to-dollars and dollars-to-bread than fuel-to-bread, or days-wages-to-soup, which is the whole point of money anyway.

nonrandomstring 3y ago

The the greatest respect, I don't think you have studied how these things unfold in practice. In all security scenarios having defence in depth, including maintaining secondary and tertiary systems greatly slows down a decline. The problem for a society that worships efficiency and convenience is that security feels like a luxury too expensive to maintain. That becomes a rationalisation to say things like "that will never happen". Or psychological 'splitting' ; "If the power goes off we're all screwed anyway, so why even try to prevent needless massive loss of life as an interim posture" > Modern power infrastructure is incredibly resilient and outages I'm sorry but you've been exposed to wishful thinking. I've a masters degree on my desk from an MoD student who did a thesis on black start and lockout scenarios as part of national security research (sorry I am unable to share it but you can dig up the same stuff from any published civilian university these days). I don't wish to be alarmist but there is a great deal to be concerned about and a great amount our governments and engineers need to do to secure things here in the UK and in the US.

jameshart 3y ago
Surely if you want to predict how resilient ‘cashless’ societies are to systemic shocks, you could do worse than to to look at Ukraine, where I think it’s fair to say power and network infrastructure underpinning digital payments have had a challenging operational environment for a few years now, and people have every reason to flee to the most secure and trustworthy ways of transacting. So what’s happening there? Reversion to a cash economy? Not really. > In 2023, most card-based transactions in Ukraine were cashless despite the full-scale war... cashless card-based transactions accounted for 65% of the total amount of card-based transactions last year, up from 61% in the pre-war year 2021. https://bank.gov.ua/ua/news/all/drugiy-rik-povnomasshtabnoyi-viyni-obsyagi-bezgotivkovih-rozrahunkiv-zrostayut https://bank.gov.ua/ua/news/all/drugiy-rik-povnomasshtabnoyi... > In Ukraine, digital payments have become mainstream with 60% of payments with Mastercard cards being made digitally today, ... For five years running, Ukraine has ranked among the top 10 countries worldwide at Mastercard by the number of NFC payments using digital cards. https://www.mastercard.com/news/eemea/en/perspectives/en/2023/leading-the-digital-payments-evolution-in-ukraine/ https://www.mastercard.com/news/eemea/en/perspectives/en/202...

zer00eyz 3y ago

I live in CA. You're supposed to have an earthquake preparedness kit, that includes water, in bottles. Do you know what happens the first moment there's anything that resembles a disaster... All the water gets bought up, because no one bothers being prepared. Your average gas station gets gas delivered once a day (or more). Gas delivery stops, were screwed pretty quick. The point being, the world is far far more brittle than anyone understands.

Infinity315 3y ago
What odds would you give on something like payment infrastructure failing for 3 or more consecutive days happening in a year or 10 years?
- jjav 3y ago
  For it to happen just means 3 days without power/internet. 100% certainty.
- zer00eyz 3y ago
  Payment infrastructure? All of it? Some of it? Recently we had this: https://codeofmatt.com/list-of-2024-leap-day-bugs/ https://codeofmatt.com/list-of-2024-leap-day-bugs/ So a day for a grocery chain in Sweden and a gas station chain in New Zealand. For me "There is a 3 out of 4 chance of a damaging earthquake in the Bay Area in the next 30 years." From: https://www.earthquakeauthority.com/blog/2020/san-francisco-bay-area-earthquake-prediction-risk https://www.earthquakeauthority.com/blog/2020/san-francisco-... Is this a week of no power (so no cc's, no atm, no cell service). A cornal mass ejection has 1 in 194 odds, is it bad enough that it's a grid killer? I don't know what the odds are for that (as in having EMP), and its gonna be fun if we see it coming to! A major payment processor failing, or payment network failing for a few days is possible. What happens when a grocery chain is open and suddenly "cash only". It has happened before. You dont need a big, or national event where social order is maintained but cash is essential to keeping things moving.
  - Infinity315 3y ago