> I don't understand why ~FedNow and CBDC~ BIG BROTHER are such a big issue in the US.
Fixed this for you.
I don't really want a gigantic federal agency having insight into every financial transaction I make. Hard, fucking, pass.
Fixed this for you.
I don't really want a gigantic federal agency having insight into every financial transaction I make. Hard, fucking, pass.
This is what's bizarre to me about the FedNow hysteria. It's not a government system replacing a private market system. It's a government system replacing an older, worse government system. It's like having a panic attack because the Federal Reserve is updating their PCs to from Windows XP to Windows 10.
I'm torn on this. Visa, MasterCard, Venmo (aka PayPal), etc. all know about large subsets of my transactions, and they go and sell my personal data to other companies in sleazy ways to cover their costs.
Is that better or worse than the government knowing all this stuff? Sure, the government can also legally use force against me and deprive me of my freedom and possessions, and might pervert my transaction history into justifying doing bad things to me. But that's a risk, not a certainty. Private companies selling my data and using it in nefarious ways is a certainty.
the government already knows.
the freezing of accounts related to the "Freedom Convoy" is quite different, as it was an exercise of emergency powers. the Trudeau admin could have ordered gas stations to not sell fuel to them, or Visa/MasterCard to not process certain cards, or anything similarly extraordinary.
The point of keeping the government out of the banking business would be to keep the door cracked for the chance to improve it later. That door slams shut once the federal government has the insights into every transaction, and more importantly the ability to deny ones they don't want us to do. We also Wil have much less control over the creation of a social credit score, theoretically the government would have everything it needs to make that happen with control over our transactions.
Are you think they won’t need search warrants?
But the list goes on..
If that's the case, I have bad news for you about the banking system of literally every developed country.
I can buy an icecream anywhere in the world without anybody tracking me. Even with the "wrong" political opinion (even if I would be a trucker in Canada during certain protests).
I cannot do that with CBDC.
No. CBDC (aka: the ultimate totalitarian's dream) is not the same as the current banking system, despite the current banking system also being very horrible for privacy.
* All of the above assuming that cash will be banned and CBDC will be mandatory for everybody.
No you can't. Companies like OpenEye and Deep Sentinel offer facial recognition solutions that are targeted at loss-prevention, and these systems are commonplace in the USA. Facial recognition-based consumer analytics systems are also available.
In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a pint of ice cream that you can buy without having a camera pointed at your face. Even the little stand at the beach in the state park near my old place had a camera, and I didn't even have real LTE coverage there.
Privacy comes only from the force of law; not the other way around.
Anyways, the whole conversation is a red herring. This is a replacement for ACH, which already exists, and there isn't substantively more information sharing between banks and governments than already exists.
Anyways, it's not (fully) about information sharing. It's about control. It's the difference between read access and read/write access.
Anyways, you missed the point.
The anti-new-technology and anti-gov-technology response to privacy and control is misguided. Corporations will fuck you, left unchecked, and governments will fuck you through corporations. There is no technical solution to political problems, and physical cash vs FedNow vs digital currency is a suite of technical solutions.
Trying to solve a political problem by eliminating technology is literally the same thing as trying to solve political problems with technology. The fallacy is in focusing on technology where the actual problem is political.
The problem is political and needs to be treated as such. The solution is building and maintaining political consensus in favor of strong privacy and personal property rights, not carrying around a billfold full of physical cash.
Can’t even recall to ever pulling some out other than some casino entertainment night. I understand all the “freedom” (or whatever one might call it) I’m losing, but the positive sides are much better (never have to care about losing my wallet, much faster transactions, convenience and etc.). Sure, sounds bad on paper, but I haven’t felt any negatives in 10+ years, especially when in practice makes my life easier.
Unfortunately, in my experience, I'd have to agree with you on that. But it also brings to mind a relevant Samuel Adams quote:
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”