Extreme Dangers of Cashless Society

[asuryan180]

The idea with whe device is pretty crazy,I've never thought of it though it seems really good and will make things much easier.The thing with BTC is it implements a concept which is unique and the concept is something that has never been seen before.BTC is a tool for that concept,yeah,a good one,but who knows when there will be invented a new and better one which will be easier for the people to understand and even better-use

[RealBitcoin]

i already thought about that. i think "hardware wallets" are a little cumbersome. and require a computer to USB port the hardware wallet. and downloading electrum or a browser add-on/extension just to make it functional.
the future "killer app" for bitcoin will definitely be a wristband.

That would be awesome, security + comfort in 1 tool. Hey if anyone reading this wanna build this, we just gave you a million dollar enterprize idea....

theres already some open source platforms for people to make a prototype smart watch
http://smartwatches.org/learn/make-your-own-smartwatch-open-source-smartwatch-project/

you can even buy 'programmable' smart watches that are already in a final design
https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/programmable-smart-watch.html

"pebble" seem to offer everything from the programmable watch to the SDK to program it
https://www.pebble.com/watches
https://developer.pebble.com/sdk/

though i linked some examples to show the watches can be programmed. im not sure if any have NFC included as that would be the important part that makes it the 'killer app' for bitcoin

Awesome, but that watch is like 8mhz. How do you propose to create a random number generator on that? It would be a pretty shitty RNG.

Besides I dont think this capacity is enough to program a fully functional wallet, so it probably needs more resources.

But definitely in the next 5- 10 years we will see miniature wallets like that, and that would be very cool.

[Dudeperfect]

as for the other part of the OP's scenario.. a NFC chip in someones arm..
well first:
they developed the NFC visa debit card 'touchless technology'
next its the NFC wristband. UK barclays is already developed this and will get people used to swiping their wrist across a machine.
https://www.shop.bpay.co.uk/categories/buy-bpay/product/wristband/wristband

even "dudeperfect" highlighted via the ted talk video he linked that disney are also going for the wristband concept to get kids used to paying by swiping their wrist. i set the time in this link to get to that section of the ted talk
https://youtu.be/_VB39Jo8mAQ?t=3m17s

so it is plausable that 'for convenience' people will opt for an implant so they never lose, drop, or have their 'wallet'(wristband) stolen/lost because it will always be available to them, implanted as oppose to worn.

The technology is not only pushing us towards being cashless but also towards device less and I would further quote couple of technologies which are going to change the way of our payment system.

1) First one is Amazon Go,

New kind of store featuring the world’s most advanced shopping technology.


2) Aadhar Enabled Payment System

The government of India introduced this in India. In this system, unique identity number is allotted to each citizen (collected biometric details for that) of India and those who have linked their number with the bank are getting government subsidies directly in their bank account.

Now if a person wants to spend his money from his bank, then he just has to give his thumb impression to POS machine, and money will be deducted from his account.

No smartphone, No passwords, No Cards

Aadhar Enabled Payment

This will boost this technology even in rural area and since cash crisis, more and more people are preferring digital payments.

[franky1]

The technology is not only pushing us towards being cashless but also towards device less and I would further quote couple of technologies which are going to change the way of our payment system.

1) First one is Amazon Go,
New kind of store featuring the world’s most advanced shopping technology.

2) Aadhar Enabled Payment System
Aadhar Enabled Payment

This will boost this technology even in rural area and since cash crisis, more and more people are preferring digital payments.

though i like the idea of amazon go

downsides.
1. amazon go.. someone steals your phone=shopping spree, champagne and caviar, mmm
2. Aadhar EPS.. if your a manual worker where your fingers get chapped(dry brittle skin) or a papercut, you starve

point 1 also applies to hardware wallets and wristbands. so although easier to use as a wristband/smartwatch rather than a phone or debit card. i feel its only a 'training' device that UK barclays/disney have started doing and eventually they will probably suggest implants as an even more convenient method that you will never lose

same goes for point 2. an implant wont get affected by manual labour or papercuts scrubbing away the top layer of skin to distort fingerprint scanners.

sidenote.
amazon go's concept is not new. and i prefer this IBM advert from 10 years ago to amazon go's advert today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GclCUPr2CV8

[Juggy777]

So it's 2030, all paper currencies are banned, there is only 1 global currency that is electronic only called The Phoenix

The Phoenix is centrally controlled by a Global Central Bank, and you can only use it via your bank account or by some specially regulated payment processors. You can spend it via your Phone, Bank Card, or from a Chip Implanted under your Skin.

• Johnny said something bad about the banks in an online forum, so his account is now suspended for 30 days as a punishment. Now he can't buy food, and will starve to death.
• Paula has criticized the government so her income tax rate has doubled for 1 year as a punishment which will directly and automatically be levied from her bank account as soon as she gets her salary
• Samuel is organizing a protest against the abusive behavior of the banks. His bank account, and all his family's account are now permanently suspended. Now they are cut off from the world economy since every merchant and every trade is happening inside the electronic banking system, and they will all starve to death.
• Rachel is talking to her friends about the many starving people who had committed these thought crimes, and as a result they are all cutoff from the economy. Now she and all her friends are punished as well. Everybody who is in contact with thought criminals are punished, so that people will self-censor each other. Big Brother loves this

What do you think about the scenario described above? I don't think it's an exaggeration of the future that comes.

How will Bitcoin play a role in this to stop this madness, and avoid an Orwellian New World Order.

You seem to be in India and you are upset with the cash being withdrawn and I won't say you are wrong to be worried about cashless risks, there is a major risk, cause they are not secured, while Bitcoin is decentralised and secured, it can't be controlled by any one or manipulated by any one. It's the best bet buy it and live a happy go life

[franky1]

You seem to be in India and you are upset with the cash being withdrawn and I won't say you are wrong to be worried about cashless risks, there is a major risk, cause they are not secured, while Bitcoin is decentralised and secured, it can't be controlled by any one or manipulated by any one. It's the best bet buy it and live a happy go life

bitcoin ONCHAIN transactions are as you say.
but what if i told you the devs want to push people into multisigs requiring a hub manager to 'authorise' your purchase by signing off on your transactions..... where your funds are locked in a 50/50 control address where you are penalised for wanting to get out early or not agreeing to a variable fee

by devs pushing for offchain LN as the ultimate solution rather than natural onchain progressive scaling (dont rebuttle with sudden large jumps in small timeframe doomsday, as thats already been proven wrong) we are seeing bitcoin become less permissionless and less uncontrolled

[chesatochi]

I will go out myself from this economy because you could never have the chance to argue, express your personal opinion or talk about anything with your friends in the danger to have a consequence. I will simply change my job to become a farmer and grow my own food and exchange my service with a community with the same mindset.

[BillyBobZorton]

So it's 2030, all paper currencies are banned, there is only 1 global currency that is electronic only called The Phoenix

The Phoenix is centrally controlled by a Global Central Bank, and you can only use it via your bank account or by some specially regulated payment processors. You can spend it via your Phone, Bank Card, or from a Chip Implanted under your Skin.

• Johnny said something bad about the banks in an online forum, so his account is now suspended for 30 days as a punishment. Now he can't buy food, and will starve to death.
• Paula has criticized the government so her income tax rate has doubled for 1 year as a punishment which will directly and automatically be levied from her bank account as soon as she gets her salary
• Samuel is organizing a protest against the abusive behavior of the banks. His bank account, and all his family's account are now permanently suspended. Now they are cut off from the world economy since every merchant and every trade is happening inside the electronic banking system, and they will all starve to death.
• Rachel is talking to her friends about the many starving people who had committed these thought crimes, and as a result they are all cutoff from the economy. Now she and all her friends are punished as well. Everybody who is in contact with thought criminals are punished, so that people will self-censor each other. Big Brother loves this

What do you think about the scenario described above? I don't think it's an exaggeration of the future that comes.

How will Bitcoin play a role in this to stop this madness, and avoid an Orwellian New World Order.

I remember reading about The Phoenix, I think it is a very serious concern, but a lot of people wash it out as random and stupid Alex Jones type of conspiracy. I think it's real and it's happening as we speak. Societies are going to remove cash in order to have total 100% control on people with the excuse of terrorism and whatnot.

It is then when we are going to need a decentralized Bitcoin (that is, a blocksize small enough to keep the nodes decentralized so governments don't easily intercept datacenters hosting the nodes and kill it by pulling the switches). Of course, you'll have franky1 here posting all day how raising the blocksize is a good idea (and it is, but ALWAYS it must be a rather conservative increase, otherwise it's worse than relying on a secondary layer, and relying on a secondary layer is the best thing we got yet).

[Dudeperfect]

The technology is not only pushing us towards being cashless but also towards device less and I would further quote couple of technologies which are going to change the way of our payment system.

1) First one is Amazon Go,
New kind of store featuring the world’s most advanced shopping technology.

2) Aadhar Enabled Payment System
Aadhar Enabled Payment

This will boost this technology even in rural area and since cash crisis, more and more people are preferring digital payments.

though i like the idea of amazon go

downsides.
1. amazon go.. someone steals your phone=shopping spree, champagne and caviar, mmm
2. Aadhar EPS.. if your a manual worker where your fingers get chapped(dry brittle skin) or a papercut, you starve

point 1 also applies to hardware wallets and wristbands. so although easier to use as a wristband/smartwatch rather than a phone or debit card. i feel its only a 'training' device that UK barclays/disney have started doing and eventually they will probably suggest implants as an even more convenient method that you will never lose

same goes for point 2. an implant wont get affected by manual labour or papercuts scrubbing away the top layer of skin to distort fingerprint scanners

Yes, there is a standard process which must be implemented if we want to bring change in the masses.

It like cash - less cash and finally cashless.

Same for device,
Device - less complicated device - device less.


There is also another aspect of this technology (over spending) which Adam Caroll explained in his TED talk.

I think we can relate it with the bitcoin too as $100 = 0.09 btc and there is difference in the impact of viewing 100 and 0.09 in the wallet balance (in spite of having same values) especially for new comers. That's my observation.

[alyssa85]

So it's 2030, all paper currencies are banned, there is only 1 global currency that is electronic only called The Phoenix

Won't happen. The history of humans is a story about groups of people breaking away and doing their own thing. Hell, bitcoin is the latest example of this - it emerged just after the financial crisis.

And look at all the alts proliferating - initially bitcoiners tried to go stop the alts, they went full authoritarian in favour of the 1 Global Cryptocurrency and they got completely crushed, those disobedient alts devs kept producing new coins, LOL.

[crwth]

So it's 2030, all paper currencies are banned, there is only 1 global currency that is electronic only called The Phoenix

The Phoenix is centrally controlled by a Global Central Bank, and you can only use it via your bank account or by some specially regulated payment processors. You can spend it via your Phone, Bank Card, or from a Chip Implanted under your Skin.

• Johnny said something bad about the banks in an online forum, so his account is now suspended for 30 days as a punishment. Now he can't buy food, and will starve to death.
• Paula has criticized the government so her income tax rate has doubled for 1 year as a punishment which will directly and automatically be levied from her bank account as soon as she gets her salary
• Samuel is organizing a protest against the abusive behavior of the banks. His bank account, and all his family's account are now permanently suspended. Now they are cut off from the world economy since every merchant and every trade is happening inside the electronic banking system, and they will all starve to death.
• Rachel is talking to her friends about the many starving people who had committed these thought crimes, and as a result they are all cutoff from the economy. Now she and all her friends are punished as well. Everybody who is in contact with thought criminals are punished, so that people will self-censor each other. Big Brother loves this

What do you think about the scenario described above? I don't think it's an exaggeration of the future that comes.

How will Bitcoin play a role in this to stop this madness, and avoid an Orwellian New World Order.

Seeing the scenarios above, it's downright chaos if that happens. The banks are super evil that one thing you do against the economy or the bank will lead to your destruction. Bitcoin could solve some of that, firstly because of its decentralized nature. No one controls it and it would just be peer to peer transactions.

[franky1]

I will go out myself from this economy because you could never have the chance to argue, express your personal opinion or talk about anything with your friends in the danger to have a consequence. I will simply change my job to become a farmer and grow my own food and exchange my service with a community with the same mindset.

yep, we are already seeing some governments proposing to allow the tax office to access peoples bank accounts and just take what the tax office thinks people owe without question. the UK for instance is implementing "Direct Recovery of Debts (DRD)" where HMRC literally takes the money from your account.

i feel this will be expanded where this will happen for many things like: parking tickets, court orders, local service charges, etc. where rather than having bailiffs/debt collectors knocking at your door to request you pay up (costing government money in wages) they will just press a button and take the funds from your account.

[franky1]

It is then when we are going to need a decentralized Bitcoin (that is, a blocksize small enough to keep the nodes decentralized so governments don't easily intercept datacenters hosting the nodes and kill it by pulling the switches). Of course, you'll have franky1 here posting all day how raising the blocksize is a good idea (and it is, but ALWAYS it must be a rather conservative increase, otherwise it's worse than relying on a secondary layer, and relying on a secondary layer is the best thing we got yet).

funny thing is that ive always said 2mb is fine.. the community said its fine
its the core fanboys that dream up doomsdays of 80gb tomorrow..

those wanting onchain scaling have LAST YEAR compromised to 2mb knowing that 8mb is safe, but 2mb is super safe to shut up the core doomsdayers..
yet all year core fanboys have been talking about hundreds of megabyte blocks and terrabytes of yearly growth... yet that has never been part of any bip or viable option for any real growth..

so wake up and stop following the old script. and learn what real onchain growth proposals have actually always been. and stop crying the doomsday scripts of yesteryear

the real funny part is how the core fanboys are throwing around the "conservative" buzzword. you guys have no clue of the meaning of the word, and the over use of the word by the same group has become very apparent and recognised
sounds like a script when all of a sudden out of nowhere every core fanboy tries to slide in the word "conservative". its like one of them sales games, you get commission for mentioning a buzzword in a sales pitch.. but it starts to become obvious by the over use of the word where in context, core are spouting out the opposite of natural safe growth

you do realise that pruned nodes, no witness nodes and LN nodes are going to kill off/dilute down the full node count
because it wont increase the node count, it will tempt those who are full nodes to downsize..

far faster than natural onchain growth would

[acroman08]

So it's 2030, all paper currencies are banned, there is only 1 global currency that is electronic only called The Phoenix

The Phoenix is centrally controlled by a Global Central Bank, and you can only use it via your bank account or by some specially regulated payment processors. You can spend it via your Phone, Bank Card, or from a Chip Implanted under your Skin.

• Johnny said something bad about the banks in an online forum, so his account is now suspended for 30 days as a punishment. Now he can't buy food, and will starve to death.
• Paula has criticized the government so her income tax rate has doubled for 1 year as a punishment which will directly and automatically be levied from her bank account as soon as she gets her salary
• Samuel is organizing a protest against the abusive behavior of the banks. His bank account, and all his family's account are now permanently suspended. Now they are cut off from the world economy since every merchant and every trade is happening inside the electronic banking system, and they will all starve to death.
• Rachel is talking to her friends about the many starving people who had committed these thought crimes, and as a result they are all cutoff from the economy. Now she and all her friends are punished as well. Everybody who is in contact with thought criminals are punished, so that people will self-censor each other. Big Brother loves this

What do you think about the scenario described above? I don't think it's an exaggeration of the future that comes.

How will Bitcoin play a role in this to stop this madness, and avoid an Orwellian New World Order.

It sounds exaggerated, but new laws are being made and the scenario will be taking place 13 years from now, might be possible or not, first having a cashless society and the bank can have full authority of your money and making a mistake or a negative image of the bank will get you punished is like a martial law. but when that happens there would already be an underground society which will make their own currency or like an item trade which will be a place for people who have been suspended, banned. criminals, homeless etc.. in short word it will be like the black market in 2030, which everybody is welcome. How's that for a counter scenario. but tbh your scenario might really happen bu,t a lot of people will oppose the implication of a cashless money lose the privilege of controlling your own money with your own hand.

[spazzdla]

For me its too exaggerated for thing thing too happen but the possibilties is always there and we would came to a point on which cash would be really banned or step-up into a new form (e-currency). 2030 is too far away from this year and there are so many innovations would really happen along the way and regarding on bitcoin about that year i think it will still exist and used by people but if the thing mentioned above will happen then transaction on bitcoin would be limited i suppose.

This isn't that far out... see history.  Humans are serious POS when they are in power.  Look at America.. buddy comes out telling people he was forced to kill children.. They put him in prison for life, solidary confiment, force feed him, torture him.. The "leader of the free world" are POS.. and they are the kindest there is.....

[darklus123]

If i am not mistaken there were few famous names in the united states who already did set things up,, if i am not mistaken obama was one of them.

Well this pretty scary, as there were a lot of doubts especially to those religious groups because they believe that it is illuminati act in which you cannot purchase if you do not worship satan)

[Kprawn]

It is not a highly unlikely scenario IF private/centralized networks are used. We have already seen Demark working on eKrone and if this is a

Fiat based currency being controlled by their government, they could easily fall victim to this. The same can be said about all other electronic

payment options controlled by private ledgers. Eg.. VISA/PayPal/MasterCard { When they ban cash, these will be your only alternatives }

How will Bitcoin prevent this? Well for one thing, it is decentralized and not controlled by one single entity.  

You could also resort to trading physical commodities. { silver and gold for food }  

[aso118]

If this scenario were to be discussed before the birth of Bitcoin, I would have said people would shift their wealth to gold and physical assets.
In such a hypothetical scenario, there would be enough people who would be ready to migrate to a private, stateless island and who would tell the Global Central Bank to take a hike. Of course, Bitcoin would be the currency in the stateless island. 

[RealBitcoin]

I will go out myself from this economy because you could never have the chance to argue, express your personal opinion or talk about anything with your friends in the danger to have a consequence. I will simply change my job to become a farmer and grow my own food and exchange my service with a community with the same mindset.

yep, we are already seeing some governments proposing to allow the tax office to access peoples bank accounts and just take what the tax office thinks people owe without question. the UK for instance is implementing "Direct Recovery of Debts (DRD)" where HMRC literally takes the money from your account.

i feel this will be expanded where this will happen for many things like: parking tickets, court orders, local service charges, etc. where rather than having bailiffs/debt collectors knocking at your door to request you pay up (costing government money in wages) they will just press a button and take the funds from your account.

Well given that most people dont have any money, they can take anything they can get their hands on.

I know personally a lot of people, who live from paycheck to paycheck. But if they take the money right after you get your salary, then they are fucked for sure.

Yes humans are a race of thieves and slaves, what can I say. Keep this trend up and most humans will starve to death soon, because they wont even have money to buy bread.

[Kakmakr]

I will go out myself from this economy because you could never have the chance to argue, express your personal opinion or talk about anything with your friends in the danger to have a consequence. I will simply change my job to become a farmer and grow my own food and exchange my service with a community with the same mindset.

yep, we are already seeing some governments proposing to allow the tax office to access peoples bank accounts and just take what the tax office thinks people owe without question. the UK for instance is implementing "Direct Recovery of Debts (DRD)" where HMRC literally takes the money from your account.

i feel this will be expanded where this will happen for many things like: parking tickets, court orders, local service charges, etc. where rather than having bailiffs/debt collectors knocking at your door to request you pay up (costing government money in wages) they will just press a button and take the funds from your account.

Well given that most people dont have any money, they can take anything they can get their hands on.

I know personally a lot of people, who live from paycheck to paycheck. But if they take the money right after you get your salary, then they are fucked for sure.

Yes humans are a race of thieves and slaves, what can I say. Keep this trend up and most humans will starve to death soon, because they wont even have money to buy bread.

Fiat Inflation is already causing most of these problems. The government manipulate inflation to serve their needs. So, if you use Fiat or some cashless system controlled by government, you are fucked either way. They print cash like toilet paper, and this kills the value of your cash.

If they apply this principle to some cashless system, where they have control over the generation of the currency token, then you would be totally fucked.

Bitcoin use real market dynamics with demand and supply and consensus systems to eliminate these threats. ^smile^