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Comment by anonymou2 | Hacker News Reader

I pay cash too as much as I can, it freaked me out when my bank started classifying my expenses. That hostile talk you mention reminds me of when I talk about vehicular cycling, specially in northern european circles, where they are a lot into segregating cyclists. I think it is a similar paternalistic issue, hey this is good for you, resistance is futile!

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An odd equivalent to make as I don't see the push to go cashless advertised as a similar public health benefit to cycling. There is data to suggest that segregating cyclists from traffic, if done properly, can reduce serious collision by 70% and deaths by 30%. Sometimes when somebody says something is good for you, it actually is.

Many people consider the surveillance that comes with electronic money to be a good thing, and they are suspicious of anyone who wants to opt out. Their emotional response to these examples is not that different.

Cynically I consider the people most interested in surveillance of money to be the tax office. (Note that I'm a believer of paying taxes and not avoiding them, and using taxation to fund public goods, voluntarily living in Norway and all.) The flip side is doing a tax return is very easy as the tax office already knows absolutely everything about your financial situation.

>it freaked me out when my bank started classifying my expenses

Through the MCC they already have that information - they just exposed it to you.

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