The Luddite's Guide to Defending Cash (2023)

https://www.asomo.co/p/the-luddites-guide-to-defending-physical-cash

by t0bia_s • 2 years ago

54 97 2 years ago

hcfman3• 2 years ago

So how do you deal with more than 10,000 euros cash in the EU ? In the EU if you can’t account for your cash and it’s over a certain amount, I think 10,000 euros but it might be as low as 2000 euros, then the government can just take it all off you.

Perfect accounting ? Keeping bank receipts? Videoing you whole waking life?

evrimoztamur• 2 years ago

Keeping bank receipts seems pretty straightforward and sufficient, no need to put it in between the two absurd takes.

hcfman3• 2 years ago

Years of distrust of the Dutch government. comes from having them facilitate criminality by proxy against me for 10 years after they busted a neigbour or for having weed. I was harassed (extremely mildly put) because I dared to complain about the trouble their informant and other neighbour was causing.

10,000 of thousands of euros later I don’t trust them strangely.

ThinkBeat• 2 years ago

Except that if you are making it a point to use physical cash in your life, then you wont have bank receipts.

Having over €15.000 in the piggy bank or mattress does not seem exceptionally unreasonable.

But from what was stated earlier in the thread I guess that is illegal now. The state can take your piggy bank, just for living on physical cash.

csydas• 2 years ago

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about unless you're meaning about immigrating with more than 10,000€ worth of physical currency? I went through immigrating to EU recently and the declaration was as simple as signing a statement that I am able to show records of how I got the money if required by the country I was moving to, and one of the examples was as simple as bank statements showing you had an income that supported you having such money.

I don't think you're talking about this, so maybe you can link to a government site with the relevant law you're discussing? It's pretty trivial to demonstrate it in most cases, and I think even a paper ledger is enough for most situations.

hcfman3• 2 years ago

I may have got the amounts wrong I see. The sentiment not.

It may have been the cross border thing but borders are pretty small here and I don’t know you need to emmigrate

realusername• 2 years ago

A fixed limit is a clear attack on carrying cash anyways, 10k€ won't be worth as much in 10 years just due to inflation, you just need to wait.

u324809320485• 2 years ago

Even that won't protect you from civil asset forfeiture in the US, as absolutely no evidence whatsoever is required.

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/dea-seized-a-womans-bag-of-cash-...

nonrandomstring5• 2 years ago

Some nice fresh ideas in here.

Love the Big Brother, Big Bouncer and Big Butler distinctions.

Some more mundane reality from the streets... actual people who work in actual shops and people who actually buy stuff are on this week's Cybershow [0] saying just how much everyone hate this cashless and robotic rubbish. Everyone with a IQ above double figures can see it's one power outage away from food riots (resilience is my personal bugbear - and I sincerely think society is screwing itself with cashless ideology and that we ought to treat it as seriously as soil erosion, climate change and other threats to food and energy continuity of operation.)

[0] https://cybershow.uk/

jameshart8• 2 years ago

one power outage away from food riots

Tell us more about this scenario. You’re positing a situation where due to an inability to accept cashless payments, supermarkets refuse to sell food to people for an extended period, leading to mass unrest? In the UK?

The UK power grid is remarkably resilient. To the extent that a half hour long power outage in London over 20 years ago is considered notable enough to deserve a Wikipedia article [1]

An extended power outage affecting access to payment capabilities across a large region would be an emergency but it wouldn’t collapse civilization. There’s little reason to suspect people would not find some way to transact while power is restored.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_London_blackout

twic2• 2 years ago

My local supermarket, in London, had an internet outage yesterday, and couldn't take card payments. Their cash machine was out of action too. They had staff outside telling everyone as they came in; some carried on in, many went elsewhere. Most people don't carry enough to cash to do meaningful grocery shopping these days.

Animats• 2 years ago

It happened in Puerto Rico after the 2017 hurricane.[1] 11 months without power. Fortunately the climate there is good.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/us/puerto-rico-shortages-...

nonrandomstring5• 2 years ago

How about you tell me more about how ""The UK power grid is remarkably resilient"?

Because those are not the facts I am looking at. We just made it through a winter where the UK government put a 30% probability on rolling brownouts due to gas instability and put additional blackout emergency plans into place for the first time since the 1970s "Winter of Discontent".

Infinity3156• 2 years ago

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.

throwup238• 2 years 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.

nonrandomstring5• 2 years 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.

zer00eyz5• 2 years 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.

jjav6• 2 years 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.

krisoft• 2 years ago

Everyone with a IQ above double figures can see it's one power outage away from food riots

It is super classy to pre-emptively call everyone stupid who disagrees with you.

dinkumthinkum9• 2 years ago

I agree with you to some extent on som points. I would say, as far as “food riots,” we have a more immediate threat to food commerce in that in the US and to some extent Canada that we are moving toward the legalization of crime and this is already having an effect in cities like Chicago, in which they are now pathetically talking about building Soviet style food markets due to such policies.

tptacek2• 2 years ago

We're doing what now? Where do I go to witness these "Soviet-style" markets? Presumably they're cited somewhere in the 2-3 blocks between giant competing Pete's and Mariano's grocery store pairs. Bonus points if the Soviet-style market is on Grand on the near-west side so I can go to Bari for a sandwich.

vvpan• 2 years ago

Brett Scott is a great public money intellectual. Happened to be listening to this podcast with him yesterday. I know it has "blockchain" in the name but that actually provokes Scott to answer some interesting hypothetical questions.

https://theblockchainsocialist.com/how-to-live-with-contradi...

popol12• 2 years ago

Monero FTW

gieksosz• 2 years ago

I was genuinely curious to learn what are the arguments to keep cash around (I myself am pretty happy with digital payments). This article was such as tedious read and in the end I am still not well educated on the arguments. mostly that there is a narrative against cash, that it is demonized and that somehow digital money is like casino chips? As far as I know banks and their apps do function based on gov regulations so it is pretty far from chips or uber points.

Georgelemental• 2 years ago

Uber is regulated also?

polygamous_bat• 2 years ago

To a far, far smaller extent than banks, but yes.

dinkumthinkum9• 2 years ago

Well a real argument people have is concerns about being in a situation of having a Chinese style “social credit system”. Now, iou might say “cash won’t save you” and you might be right but that’s a case for using cash. I think in the US it can be a bigger concern because of rise in punishment (social and otherwise) for wrongthink. We have already imported Mao struggle sessions, essentially.

silverquiet3• 2 years ago

If the American Social Credit system (which would already be largely redundant with the private credit system) would give demerits to people with loud exhausts, I'd welcome it in a heartbeat. I can't rightthink or wrongthink with the idiots who do that coming and going all the time.

mhh__• 2 years ago

We (west) already have a credit system that cash hedges against — a charity my parents look after woke up one day with no bank account, because the bank had not received a reply to a letter they'd sent to who knows where.

If I were a coffee shop I'd take cash just as an operational hedge against that kind of thing, let alone "the government has banned coffee shops" tail risk.

bbreier• 2 years ago

We have already imported Mao struggle sessions, essentially.

What? I haven't had to go publicly shame my neighbors for not being revolutionary enough, at least that I remember.

zer00eyz5• 2 years ago

Credit cards are very literally a social credit system.

OH did you play by the rules, well then you get "cash back" on your purchase. Oh you didn't play by the rules, well the 3 percent markup that is on everything purchased with credit is going in the pocket of someone else. You should do better and we will give you some of that money back. Thanks for playing and do remember dont be poor.

Im a very pro capitalism type of person, but our credit, and credit card/transaction system is fucked up on a lot of levels.

kevin_thibedeau• 2 years ago

We already have social credit for banking in the US as the poor don't get to have bank accounts. In a twisted way this helps maintain support for cash and non-app card payments for businesses and public services that can't shut out the poor.

Brian_K_White4• 2 years ago

The writing was not great, but, the first paragraph asks a few questions and then says the piece is for you if you answered yes to any of them.

If you are happy with the idea that there doesn't need to be any other form of money than centrally administered digital money, then by definition the piece was not for you. It said so right to you right at the start.

The arguments are unlikely to be convincing to you, or else you already wouldn't need any convincing. To me the arguments are self-evident and obvious, and sort of makes no sense to try to explain them except to a child. It's like asking why one should want to eat food or avoid getting burned by fire.

According to the articles own opening statement of purpose, it wasn't written for someone like you to read and be convinced of something they didn't already think. It was written for someone like me to read so that I can better articulate arguments when conversing with someone like you.

But I rarely ever bother to do that for the reason I just gave.

If someone doesn't recognize the problem, nothing anyone else says will change that, because they were already aware of all the same facts, and the reasoning that proceeds from those facts is too simple to not grasp.

So if given the same facts, someone doesn't think there's a problem, it's because they simply don't agree about the importance or imacts or implications of some of the facts.

That's essentially just feeling and opinion, and that can't be argued with.

So I usually only say "Go forth and enjoy your terribly_unwise_thing".

In this case, go forth and enjoy your all-digital life.

By the numbers, it will likely go fine for you.

By which I mean because that's the way all things work no matter how bad or wrong.

If a harm affects everyone, then it's either indirect and deniable (in other words hidden), or it's mild enough on an individual scale that each individual just tolerates it. Collectively someone is getting away with murder, but individually you just tolerate some small theft or technical injustice because that is the path of least resistance, and a lot of people equate that with "rational".

Or if a harm is significant, then it doesn't affect most people and so most people don't care about the propblem only a few people face who aren't them.

IE, by the numbers, both you and I will probably never suffer any obvious problem from money being all digital, and all centralized in orgsnizations we can't audit or control.

The difference is when I see a single instance of someone's life being destroyed or even merely controlled by the abuse or even mere mismanagement of the power granted by digital assets and digital ID, I recognize that there is no special difference between myself and that unlucky person, and the mechanism that provides that power should probably simply not exist.

The problem is not that some power isn't administered well enough, the problem is that the means exist at all.

I am not ok with relying on essentially a lottery that I won't be abused, not where it's artificial and avoidable. We have to suffer all kinds of luck no matter what, but that in no way excuses voluntarily giving your life into someone else's hands and just hoping they treat to right, or excuses them for creating systems that grant themselves that much control and requiring you to trust them with that much control and veto power over every tiny aspect of your life. It doesn't matter if they mostly don't get in your way.

As an IT guy I sometimes get funny looks from a customer when I avoid knowing their most important passwords. "Can't I trust you?" Absolutely. The way you know you can trust me is I never ask you to trust me.

Anyone who not only asks, but requires you to trust them with some significant power over you, is automatically in the wrong. Automatically. It's an indellible property of the very act itself.

t0bia_s3• 2 years ago

Try digitally give money to your kids or homeless people. Or anyone who does not have data, device or even access to electricity (most of people).

Gigachad2• 2 years ago

Gen Z here. My parents just handed me their credit card when I needed to buy things. Also made use of prepaid visa cards that were not attached to a bank account before I got an account of my own.

jjav6• 2 years ago

As far as I know banks and their apps do function based on gov regulations so it is pretty far from chips or uber points.

Electronic payments depend on a long series of things working correctly, any one of which can block you.

Electricity and internet connectivity are two obvious ones, which do fail.

More subtle, both you and the recipient of the payment must be in good standing with whatever authority (or multiple ones) the payment is flowing through. If either one is blocked for whatever obscure reason, no payment can be made or received. So now you have the denial of service risk of a third party arbiter on whether the payment you're trying to make is fine with them, or risk being blocked.

Cash suffers from none of these problems! It is strictly peer to peer, requires absolutely nothing external to be functioning and has no dependency on any third parties. You have bills in your pocket, you can pay anyone at any time for whatever you want. Completely anonymously and it cannot be blocked. Aside from the small inconvenience of having to carry the bills, cash is the perfect payment mechanism.

doug_durham• 2 years ago

Wow, that was amazingly bad. The author is clearly in love with their ideas. However what few points they make is buried in pages of patronizing, self-indulgent prose. Advice, distill this down on one page and do a good-faith challenge of other ideas.

nonrandomstring5• 2 years ago

Meta, but

  1) I am not the author

  2) I agree with the ideas presented

  3) I've written similar pieces on similar ideas, have researched
     the topic and been interviewed as an expert for documentary
     film and television.

So, I experienced the piece as well written, accessible and thorough, covering most of the common talking points and offering some good new thoughts.

Now obviously we each experience things we agree with differently than those we disagree with.

It does seem that ideas around cashless commerce are very polarising.

But what I am seeing in this this thread is some quite disappointing modes of argument, including your own comment which is really just fulminating against the style of writing and the author.

It would be much more interesting to know why you feel aggrieved by opposition to cashless technologies. Can you tell us that?

gomox2• 2 years ago

If you are in any way concerned about your life's keys being at the mercy of Google or Apple picking up the phone when your account eventually gets locked up ("risk algorithm flag" - good luck!), you should easily be able to understand why a cashless society based on banks or governments as gatekeepers can be just as bad, if not a lot worse.

hakfoo2• 2 years ago

What I prefer about cash is that it enforces a different attitude towards money. If you have a pile of notes or coins and watch them diminish, it definitely changes your attitude towards spending versus "present a card, and at the end of the month, you'll get a statement." Yeah, online banking and notifications get your finger closer to the pulse of your financial state, but it's hardly the same experience as "there are no more notes, spending must stop now."

Ironically, I'd be more comfortable with digital payments if they were implemented through the state than the current private-sector plays. The government has obligations to service all legal customers, so there's limited wiggle room for them to deplatform. Meanwhile, private banks and card networks can be bullied into making some industries off-limits.

gomox2• 2 years ago

Just last week my brother in law (in the US) wanted to send an Uber Eats gift card to my girlfriend (his sister, in Mexico) because she is staying home recovering from a minor surgery.

He is not able to purchase such a gift card from the US site (gift cards are country specific). He is also not able to purchase such a gift card from the Mexico site (which demands a Mexican national ID to process the payment). He asks for my help. I try to use the same Mexican site, which refuses to take any of the 4 cards I try. I then use the website's option to "pay at OXXO" (a low tech system to pay for bills, in cash, through a large network of convenience stores owned by the local Coca Cola distributor).

Cash saves the day.

Next up he wants to pay me back. Cashapp/Venmo/Zelle are only for US residents. Local wires within the US are a pain. International wires are worse, and cost half of the amount he borrowed.

Solution? Pay me back in cash next time im in town.

The more suprising bit is that in this random anecdote cash ends up being superior to "cashless" even for one of its worse use cases (cross border transactions).

theragra• 2 years ago

Because current electronic money are too centralized and gated. I have the same issue with payment from USA. I don't want PayPal, and my sister says ACH payment is expensive for her. So, I tell her to give cash to my parents when they visit. But when I needed to transfer cryptocurrency to her, it was easy and quick.

jjav6• 2 years ago

Because current electronic money are too centralized and gated.

Electronic payments are by definition centralized and gated, because someone has to operate them. That someone(s) is the gate.

(Sure, blockchain.. I don't see that happening.)

t0bia_s3• 2 years ago

You cannot pay Uber by crypto?

t0bia_s3• 2 years ago

Uber and bycicle comparison is great.

Author should mention technical requirements for cashless society. Data around the globe, device for everyone and electricity to power those devices. Which is something that most people cannot afford. Also, this would require constitutional right for having those devices.

iteratethis• 2 years ago

I want to describe society in the 80s, Western Europe.

Everything is cash-based. My dad got paid in cash. He spent in cash, in stores as well as freely transacting with friends and family. There were (hardly) any CCTV cameras anywhere and of course no smartphones.

The personal freedom and lack of surveillance might be hard to imagine for young people.

The government knows close to nothing about you. They know you exist and would know that you have a job. Nobody really knows how much money you have, what you spent it on, your whereabouts and the mentality very much was that this is nobody's business. The distributed nature of cash makes arbitrary seizure impractical.

Now the burden of proof is reversed. "Money as software" makes possible an unlimited number of disturbing scenarios.

kkfx• 2 years ago

Just two note: I do not know what it will happen because there is not much public info but for us European the EU have started experimenting with GNU Taler https://social.network.europa.eu/@EC_NGI/111499172838284606 with a not so clear roadmap https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-an-ec... in this case Taler are eCashes, so they might be ok for public usage not being directly tied to a specific service just to exchange them, we just need the bank to cash in. BUT the main issue is simple offline availability witch is something we MUST have as a spare wheel: personally I buy essentially everything with electronic moneys (bank cards, wire transfers etc) BUT a day that my favorite grocery store loose connections due to some road works damage I've paid cash because I have them and both parties have no other choices. This is a rare events but we need to keep up small economy in case of major disruptive events and that' where even taler fall short since it allow just a SINGLE P2P exchange.

The Luddite's Guide to Defending Cash (2023)

Related Stories