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Comment by philwelch | Hacker News Reader

Just in the space of a single month earlier this year, we saw two extraordinary things happen:

1. The executive branch of a major Western democracy unilaterally invoked emergency powers to freeze the bank accounts of political dissidents.

2. Two American credit card companies unilaterally and without warning revoked all service to an entire country.

In a cashless system, your money does not belong to you. It belongs to authorities and institutions that do not care about you. Whether or not you can buy groceries can change in an instant, regardless of whether or not you personally deserve it. You might be trying to get your family out of a country that’s made itself an international pariah—you may even condemn your government’s actions—but that doesn’t mean your card is going to work when you try and buy a meal for your family at the train station.

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3. The Ruble tanked, affecting cash and card users alike.

It’s not illegal in Russia and in fact is very common to store savings in USD/EUR, both in cash or bank deposit form.

Nothing bad happened to those forms of savings.

I read somewhere that the Russian government prohibited USD/EUR withdrawals once the sanctions started. Cash should still be good though.

Not your wallet - not your fiat.

I don't understand the logic behind this line of reasoning - Based on the sentiment and 2 reasons above, you should have pulled all your money out of a bank so you can control your cash.

So have you? or why haven't you?

> In a cashless system, your money does not belong to you.

This doesn't work in reality because most people don't hold the majority of their money in cash form. You're already 95-99% cashless.

To me the above arguments are a better reasoning for crypto-currencies and their actual use instead of pure trade instead of fear of becoming 'cashless'.

> Based on the sentiment and 2 reasons above, you should have pulled all your money out of a bank so you can control your cash.

> So have you? or why haven't you?

Not parent but share the sentiment. I have not. I don't see the conflict. Someone who's e.g. very pro freedom of speech might not personally worry about getting censored, but may be worried what happens if those on the edges get censored. It's the same here. Most have no immediate personal worry, and that's perfectly compatible with having an opinion about how the government should regulate monetary instruments.

I've pulled a lot of my money out into crypto currency now. Often my wallet is worth more than my checking account.

Despite the efforts of the Republicans to destroy the USA, I can’t seriously see this kind of thing happening. Russia on the other hand, since the war started I’ve read a number of articles by Russians saying they weren’t too surprised by what happened to them.

Point 1 happened in Canada not the US. Also, It was not republicans who invoked this power but Canadian leftists. Trudeau invoked emergency powers to quash dissidents in Montreal (?) because he did not agree with their protests.

Incredible how the western world has turned a blind eye to this event because the ‘right’ people were targeted.

It was Ottawa, and Trudeau used all same rhetoric Putin is using now, calling them Nazis[1], denying the leaders bail[2], charged with mischief, and pushing propaganda thru state media.

Like the story of truckers attempting to burn down an apartment building[3], that turned out to be completely false, but used to prove violence and justify the emergencies act.

[1] https://nypost.com/2022/02/16/justin-trudeau-sparks-outrage-...

[2] https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/key-convoy-organizer-tamara-li...

[3] https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/suspect-charged-in-downtown-ottawa...

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