Posted on 04/02/2014 9:14:27 AM PDT by Star Traveler
Imagine it’s 2040.
You go to the grocery store, and when you look for the checkout counter there is none. There’s no place to pay for your groceries because you already did.
When you walked into the store, a sensor identified you, perhaps from a ring or watch you were wearing that transmitted the information. Or perhaps you didn’t need to wear anything special. Maybe a device in the store figured out who you were using a combination of facial recognition, 3-D body shape identification and your gait.
Your unique identifier is attached to your digital wallet, which transmits payment for the groceries directly to the store. But you don’t pay in dollars. Your wallet has a dozen digital currencies in it, all with different values based on a variety of factors, including loyalty programs. At certain stores, you might pay with their version of frequent-flier miles. At others, you might pay with the equivalent of a virtual credit card — except the credit card isn’t issued by a traditional bank.
You might also pay with credit that you received through a peer-to-peer online exchange that connects investors with people seeking short- and long-term loans. That’s how you got your mortgage and financed your self-driving car, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at dealbook.nytimes.com ...
A lot of this futurism can be easily dispelled.
Go to a grocery store with self check-out. Maybe eight terminals with one checker. Note how that checker is constantly on the go. While it is more efficient than an individual checker for each terminal, it still requires a lot of work. That individual probably expends more effort than three line checkers.
And the zinger is that that checker *has* to do these things, because they cannot be done automatically.
Nope, I’m sorry, but this “futurism” is not dispelled the way I look at it. You see, I talked to my grandfather who was born before the turn of the last century. So I know what “futurism” brings.
If your transaction is electronic it’s traceable, if it’s traceable it’s traceable to you, if it’s traceable to you it can be shutdown because it’s you.
Did you really get the Scofield notes? My dad had them in his Bible, but I’ve never gotten them. I’m thinking about it, though.
If I’ve been “turned off” electronically (which I think the government would do to some people) ... they’ll have to find me first ... LOL ...
So I just stand in a regular line and read a Kindle book on my phone while I wait. Everything is done for me, all I have to do is swipe my card.
Yup, and the gov will track your every move just like it tracks your every phone call.
Surveiller’s wet dream.
You make it sound like people should just “roll over and die” right now. Sorry, but I don’t quite think that way.
No they won’t, no more than they have to now. of course more importantly if you’ve got a bitcoin card that they’ve associated with you and you meet some guy in an alley and pay him with that bitcoin that they know to be monitoring and you guys hit the internet via your smartphone to transfer money you just told them where you are. Better than turning you off, you’ve now got a tracer.
I was thinking more along the lines of not some kind of “card” that you would run through a terminal to spend (which you could do and draw on some Bitcoin account) — but rather keeping all that information offline, and in a small storage device that that you have with you.
Just think of it in the same manner as dealing with cash with someone else (except “cash” no longer exists at that time). Now, it’s possible with “cash” to track down people, but it’s difficult and it’s possible to “stay a step ahead”.
And if push comes to shove people are going to do it.
Nobody you’re dealing with on the blackmarket is going to want to wait for the transaction. In some way shape or form you’ll have to access your online coin wallet during the transaction, and if you’ve done any “legit” stuff with that wallet the government could know to be monitoring it.
Of course that’s just the government side. Remember if you’re doing black market stuff then you’re dealing with criminals, one rule of back alley buying is never bring more money than you’re already going to give the guy, because if they see it they’re probably going to want it, and they are after all criminals. Now what happens if the guy knows you have bitcoin info on you, online or off, there’s probably more money on the other side of that than you’re going to give him, it’s like telling him to follow you to the ATM.
If cash ceases to exist the black market will become barter, or will invent their own cash that’s still physical. They won’t be using anything that’s basically a debit card because they will (wisely) not trust each other.
That remains to be seen. The way it goes in the black market is that it adapts to the society that it’s in. And if it’s in a highly technological society, then it will operate in the same venue.
How that is “worked out” in detail is never seen “beforehand” - but it does get done in the end.
It generally gets worked out with cash. Because the black market lacks the single most important thing for electronic transactions: trust.
As I said, there will come a time when cash no longer exists. As I see it - that’s inevitable. If someone disagrees and says that will never happen with “cash” - then that’s another matter and for another discussion.
The way I see people adapting — is as they have always adapted before and doing so in the context of their present society - according to the technological capabilities and the time period (which is yet in the future).
You give a picture of going backwards technologically speaking (in dealing with these things), while I’m saying that this kind if stuff will “move ahead” technologically speaking.
I had just order the Bible when you pinged me. I’ll let you know as soon as it gets here on the notes. It’s amazing how fast those bitcoins leave your wallet and end up at overstock. Less than a second from the time you hit send. lol! I do have my miner fee for transactions set to .01% though. Maybe I’ll make some of that back! ;)
So you do what they did back in the USSR. Live “na levo,” meaning “under the table.” You want to make sure you can always jump that line at the doctor’s office? Maybe he’ll see you in a “special” after hours appointment? Easy; you build a deck on his house. To get the lumber, you give the guy at the state lumberyard a few bottles of vodka, he looks the other way while the lumber disappears.
Fill the garage with plywood, drywall, cases of scotch and cigarettes. Keep handy the phone numbers of a few hookers that owe you favors.
Make sure the cop down the street gets his piece of the action.
That’s what socialism does to a society. And if you want to get by, you’ll get good at it.
People have been predicting a cashless society for a very long time. So far it hasn’t come close. Between our fondness for black markets and our fondness for convenience and our paranoia about somebody getting our precious numbers there will always be a demand for cash.
I’m not talking about going backwards at all. The black market is mostly cash driven now and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. The only way it’s changing is if something comes up that has all the same safeguards as cash: 100% untraceable in any direction, able to completely control the amount you carry, and able to prove the transaction happened with no trust. Some SF movies movies have credit chits that you can move money in and out of or simply handover the chit, something like that could replace cash (assuming the transferring from one to another didn’t involve any for of communicating with any other computer, communication is traceable), short of that the black market will stay on cash. And for many of the same reasons even the legit portion of the populace will continue to use cash in high enough demand for governments to keep making it.
I understand how people have been predicting it - and that’s actually because there are some good reasons for doing so, and it’s been gradually moving that way. That movement is continuing - and someone saying that we’re not at that finish line yet — doesn’t mean that we’re not getting there. We’re definitely not running back to the “start line” on this one ... :-) ...
SO ... what you’re talking about is for “now” (and I can see that for now) - but we won’t be remaining in this “now” forever. We will be getting to that future, no matter if people like it or not.
When I said there are good reason for going cashless, I can see it. However, at the same time, it leads - potentially - to a greater degree of control over people. And I do believe that’s the way it’s going to go.
It’s on Drudge! New York Times, The speed of Bitcoin’s adoption is following and exceeding the combined rate of Facebook and Google. It is everywhere.
This is the most amazing thing I have ever witnessed, the velocity is a unbelievable.
Well ... I hate to tell you, but that’s where I got it ... from Drudge ... :-) ...
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