Some far-right activists and conspiracy theories are advocating against card-payments and for cash, and it's pissing me off
It's discrediting valid concerns against card-payments. It's invalidating how great cash is.
It's when the worst person you know makes a good point.
And things now are so Culture-Wars-y, nobody makes solid analyses any more, that when the far-right say cards are bad, everybody jumps to thinking cards are good.
I don’t agree that the reaction to what rightwingers say is so thoughtlessly contrary. In my experience, the reaction is usually “…huh, not what I expected, but okay. Oh, wait, THAT’S the reason they hate it? Nevermind…”
Why is it a bad thing if someone you don't like says something sensible?
There's a lot of natural alliance between the anti-establishment on the right and the left... that's why the establishment spends so much money and effort making propaganda, trying to make sure that the natural rage of the screwed-over gets channeled to the far right. The rage gets aimed at the left, instead of being properly directed at the people who are screwing them.
I don't feel like it's helping if someone who's a victim of that propaganda makes a good decision, and people on the left don't want to acknowledge it.
Agreed. This kinda looks like rage-bait anyhow. OP's argument is pretty sloppy, too.
A: Some far-right activists and conspiracy theories are advocating against card-payments and for cash
B: discrediting valid concerns against card-payments.
It'd be a pretty tough argument, but B doesn't follow from A directly and would need some heavy lifting in between. Also, OP's post is most def "culture-wars-y."
Sane and reasonable people spent several decades advocating the use of cash instead of cards since at least the 1970s, until we mostly gave up. Who knows, maybe the newly invigorated crazy people will do better. They can't do much worse.
The lack of privacy is kind of the point. I can never go back to cash. Yes, there's a ton of problems with credit cards and definitely censorship issues, but the pros still heavily outweigh the cons. Money is dirty, messy to deal with, change is a nightmare, can get lost, can get stolen, can't really carry around large amounts, and is generally really bulky to carry around.
While the last pandemic investigation showed that those machines where you put in your pin in supermarkets had more bacteria/viruses than cash. Much more people using those terminals more frequently than any same coin or same bill.
Digital money is stolen more often and in higher amounts. People who are glorifying credit cards do it until they got scammed or hacked and loose all their savings or even their identity. They go from "credit card fuck yeah" to "why have I been so stupid?" within a minute.
And why would you even carry a large amount of money with you? People who use cash, use common sense in general.
Credit cards have charge backs and fraud protection, buddy. You are significantly safer using them. That's the benefit to them being privacy invasive.
Using chip is also a bit cleaner then swiping. You also don't use just a single dollar bill or coin, you are touching multiple quantities, giving and receiving.
Also your other replies are super toxic and you talk like a child so I'm just going to block you here.
I remember as a kid, seeing a commercial for a credit card where the clown of the ad tried to use cash, inconveniencing the mob behind him and it really stuck with me how unapologetic credit companies were when training their consumers and debt carriers.
This is a non-post, as it doesn't even bring its own analysis to the table. What are the valid concerns against card payments? What is so great about cash?
The convenience of card payments heavily outweighs the (i assume privacy) concerns. So what if anyone knows I stuffed myself with an unhealthy amount of chips? I keep my cash for things that don't accept other ways of payment, like bus fare and my drug dealer.
I see your point, though. It isn't solely applicable to this issue; any discussion is mudded by disagreeing just for the sake of rejecting anything anyone with an opposing view on a distinct and unrelated subject.
I agree electronic payments are more beneficial than harmful. In terms of privacy in the mass surveillance world we live in, using cash just forces the watchers to use your cellphone data instead. I think privacy these days is mostly about living an uninteresting life.
In the UK buses and taxis increasingly take cards, and are phasing out cash. Same goes for shops. Having a card becomes the norm because it's less fiddly and more convenient - great!
To open a bank account you need a fixed address and proof of ID in the form of a passport or driving license.
In the last year several thousand people have had bank accounts closed under the presumption of being a "politically vulnerable person", one example was a teacher who went to volunteer in Ukraine for while.
If your bank account is overdrawn you get fees and are unable to use your card.
My mother is 85 and doesn't understand ATMs, never mind online banking. The decreased access to cash has left her confused, and when stressed she can't remember her pin number.
So, the most vulnerable in society are gradually being squeezed out of the ability to live day-to-day thanks to cash being phased out ... the same is a desirable end-point for many capitalists elsewhere in the first world because they don't see the value of people on the bottom rung.
We have several stores that refuse to accept cash. A few weeks ago, we had a pretty harsh storm that knocked out power to major parts of the city for a little over a week. The area where these stores are was affected. All the stores next to them have always accepted cash. The surrounding stores continued to have business for that week, while those cash-deterrent stores had no business, and lost their edge (niche market, but they opened first in the area, so people knew them best). It's been weeks, and those stores still have not picked up foot traffic to levels before the blackout, and one just had a liquidation sale and will likely close soon. Cash should always be an option. Otherwise, we give up our independence from the supporting systems (electricity, internet, payment processors, etc.). On a side note, cash is a lot more private than card.
I recently learned that all governments participating in the Euro guarantee that business have to accept cash. Refusing it is a violation of the accords.
I think it's illegal here, too, but they started doing this at covid, after years of trying. If you fight them with it and try to make them accept cash, they'll just ask you leave. If you stay after being asked to leave, you're now trespassing, which is also illegal and is treated much more harshly than refusing to accept cash.
Smells like Poland, I've seen a lot of "STOP NWO" "PŁAĆ GOTÓWKĄ" grafitti all over the place. Probably drawn by a singular guy seeing how similar they've looked and had the same color.
I'm as dead centre as it gets. On some topics, I'll gently lean left or right, but try to be balanced in my analysis of things.
I advocate for cash, as I also advocate for privacy. It doesn't make me far right.
There are plenty of reasons for cash. For me, it's privacy. For others, I'm sure there are some solid, and some whacky reasons also.
The real issue for me will be the digital dollar. Every dollar will be tracked through every transaction it's ever involved in. From inception into eternity. The ability for that data to be abused is terrifying.
I'll keep using cash as long as it exists compared to what's coming with the digital dollar.
„ppl i don’t agree with have the same stance on privacy for basically the same reasons as I do and because the media is trained like pawlow‘s dogs they will now frame the exact opposite as sane and now I’m mad at the ppl I don’t agree with“ - the post.
I don't see how conspiracy theories would discredit cash over card. They often cite the same reasons any other anti-card payment people have. They just have weird reasons to need those features. If they're paranoid about being "got" by "them," they're usually into the private nature of cash and all that goes along with it, same as any other privacy concerned person.
They certainly don't hurt it as much as drug dealers and money launderers.
I actually saw a sticker recently placed on a bus stop saying "save Poland, use cash" and I was very perplexed by it. I suspected it was some far-right/alt-right bs, but wasn't sure.
Great, so they get payment processors to refuse "dirty" merchants (aka porn) and then jump ship from them anyways? Why do they try to make everything suck
Personally I never use cash anymore, because cards are just more convenient. That being said, I agree with the conspiracy nuts that cash should always stay a viable alternative. I trust the current government and banks enough, but if all goes to shit I want to be able to pay with cash to keep my data safe.
You do realize that cash self checkouts exist? They're only rare as they cost more money for companies, but who says they couldn't be legally enforced? I've honestly seen them only in hipermarkets like Auchan, Tesco, Le'Clerc and Carrefour.
I already see where this is going. The far-right is going to fuck up their credit scores even worse and then blame the NWO or wokeness or socialism or anything but their own stupidity when they cant get a car loan in 3 years.
You dont need a credit score to borrow money. I own crypto that i can borrow against as collateral for a loan. Plus i can keep it out forever as long as i pay at least the interest payment. I obviously dont do that, but i could. You do have to be careful with borrowing from crypto or stocks since they fluctuate and you could get liquidated, but i am allowed to borrow up to 70% of the face value and i have a personal cap of 35% so i never run into that.
Are there reasonably okay options to paying digitally without the surveillance part (or at least less of it as compared to credit cards?)
Blockchain is a nonstarter due to the practical limitations in sustaining proof of work and stake.
Covid made this really hard and somewhat political. A lot of businesses stopped taking cash. Some still don't take cash. Covid was never spread much in surfaces but I wasn't trying to argue and look like some whack job antivax person.
Who cares. When you're right, your right. I am sure many "far right people" are against stealing from your grandma. Agreeing to this common sense moral is bad?
I agree cash sucks in may ways. But in may ways cash is extremely good.
For example privacy wise cash it king as it is for the most part is untraceable. I take $1,000 out of the bank. And it is much harder for anyone but myself to keep track of where I am spending that $1,000. Vs a debit/credit card the banks have a complete logs of everything I am buying. And potentially the retailers could be tracking my purchases via my card as well.
I thought the government was tracking the serial numbers on larger bills that were dispensed through ATMs? I didn’t hear that from a reliable source, but it seems pretty simple from a number of transactions standpoint.