How Long It Will Be Before Our Society Becomes A Cashless One?

[ECCOnoob]

1 hour ago, Organgrinder said:

My bold:    Exactly.  People don't know what they are sleepwalking into as they so willingly allow computers to take over their lives.    The lives they won't have  if a computer says so.

You do realise that people have been willingly allowing computers 'take over their lives' for the past 70 years.

 

You know that payroll you receive, that bank account you use, those planes in the sky, that power that goes to your house, that water that flows through your tap, that military that protects us from harm, those shop shelves that keep being filled, that television and radio that keeps being broadcast, even that health and medical treatment you receive is all touched by the power of computers. 

 

This nonsense people have to think that rebelling against technology and digital banking  takes them off grid and somehow sticks it up to 'the man'.   This complete naivety they have that somehow computer dependance is a millennial thing and became prominent in the past couple of decades. 

[Baron99]

11 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

No it wasn't.  

 

Most of the stores were still able to accept chip and pin card payments - it was just contactless affected.  In some others, all checkouts were working fine with just the handheld self scan devices and online ordering offline. 

 

It was only a small number of shops that had  complete failure and had to go cash only.

When we walked into Sainsbury's yesterday at around 9:30, customers were being met by one of the security guards telling everyone, "It's cash only.  The contactless & chip & PIN are down." 

 

I guess you actually had to be there. 

 

Here you all are, interested parties, take your pick.  ALL Sainsbury's shops were affected.  Tesco's were also having IT problems as well. 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68584235

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/16/sainsburys-grocery-deliveries-hit-by-technical-issue

https://news.sky.com/story/sainsburys-suffering-technical-issues-and-is-unable-to-fulfil-vast-majority-of-online-deliveries-13095737

[ECCOnoob]

5 minutes ago, Baron99 said:

. 

 

9 minutes ago, Baron99 said:

When we walked into Sainsbury's yesterday at around 9:30, customers were being met by one of the security guards telling everyone, "It's cash only.  The contactless & chip & PIN are down." 

 

I guess you actually had to be there. 

 

Here you all are, interested parties, take your pick.  ALL Sainsbury's shops were affected.  Tesco's were also having IT problems as well. 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68584235

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/16/sainsburys-grocery-deliveries-hit-by-technical-issue

https://news.sky.com/story/sainsburys-suffering-technical-issues-and-is-unable-to-fulfil-vast-majority-of-online-deliveries-13095737

 

Hence why I used the word "most" not "all"

 

What's the point you're trying to prove?   Yes, so they store you went to had become cash only along with a handful of others.   However, the fault was not entirely universal.

 

From the sky news article:

All stores remained open during the technical blunder, the supermarket said, and the "majority" of chip and pin transactions were working.

 

Regardless, it was a temporary fault that was resolved.  Hardly a great life changing drama.

 

Nobody is suggesting that computers are completely infallible but then nobody can say that manual systems worked guaranteed 100% of the time either.  

[ab6262]

if society ever goes cashless we truly are then trapped, no way to pay or withdraw, the government will have utter control, it must not happen.

[SheffieldForum]

Interestingly, there are apparently twice the amount of bank notes in circulation today than there was 10 years ago.

[PRESLEY]

5 minutes ago, SheffieldForum said:

Interestingly, there are apparently twice the amount of bank notes in circulation today than there was 10 years ago.

As the old saying goes " Your never alone with a Grand in your pocket"  these days you will be,  because it doesn't go very far.  

[ECCOnoob]

56 minutes ago, ab6262 said:

if society ever goes cashless we truly are then trapped, no way to pay or withdraw, the government will have utter control, it must not happen.

You do realise that the physical cash itself is just a piece of paper. It is technically worthless.

 

Its worth, power and means is only as good as the projection value of currency or commodity fix to it. Something that could all dramatically change at the stroke of a pen. The Bank of England is still the government.  The Bank of England is the issuer and authority of a cash notes free to make any changes they want.  If they decided tomorrow that £5 notes were totally worthless and remove from circulation they can.

 

That's before we get onto the effects of things like hyper-inflation which has happened with real world examples of how even having a trolley full of bank notes gets you nothing.

 

They already have total control. We don't make our own personal currency. I don't write bank notes on the bank of me. We're not bartering in beads and trinkets any more.

[Chekhov]

Interesting sidelight on this.

On the way to AUS and NZ we stopped off in Korea of a couple of days.  We thought everything would be aimed at cashless card use in a country that, in some technological ways, is more "advanced" than the UK. So we did not bother getting any Korean money.

However, at the airport we were unable to buy our train tickets into Seoul as the machine only accepted the Seoul travel card or cash...... Fortunately I still had about £30 in pounds in my wallet so we had to change that for South Korean won and used that no problem ! !

[Chekhov]

1 hour ago, ab6262 said:

if society ever goes cashless we truly are then trapped, no way to pay or withdraw, the government will have utter control, it must not happen.

Remember what happened with the Canadian truckers when they were protesting against vaccine passports ?

 

(15 February 2022) Trudeau vows to freeze anti-mandate protesters' bank accounts

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said at Monday's news conference that banks would be able freeze personal accounts of anyone linked with the protests without any need for a court order.

Vehicle insurance of anyone involved with the demonstrations can also be suspended, she added.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60383385

 

Two points :

1 - It really is incredible that a so called free democratic country (ironically led by "the Liberal Party"........) could even consider such an action.

2 - We must make sure it can never happen here, and if it does, people can get round it.

[Baron99]

7 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

Remember what happened with the Canadian truckers when they were protesting against vaccine passports ?

 

(15 February 2022) Trudeau vows to freeze anti-mandate protesters' bank accounts

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said at Monday's news conference that banks would be able freeze personal accounts of anyone linked with the protests without any need for a court order.

Vehicle insurance of anyone involved with the demonstrations can also be suspended, she added.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60383385

 

Two points :

1 - It really is incredible that a so called free democratic country (ironically led by "the Liberal Party"........) could even consider such an action.

2 - We must make sure it can never happen here, and if it does, people can get round it.

In Britain there are two pieces of legislation which give the Government power to order the suspension of the internet.

 

The Civil Contingencies Act and the 2003 Communications Act can both be used to suspend internet services, either by ordering internet service providers (ISPs) to shut down their operations or by closing internet exchanges. Under the protocol of the Communications Act, the switch-flicking would be done by the Culture Secretary.