Can we file this under “obvious?”
So Alexander herself is a ‘pornographic item’?
Yeesh.
Yup. I mean what about visa et al freezing donations to Snowden? Or, for a more prosaic example, how the hell am I supposed to buy weed without cash?
Edit: it was Wikileaks I was thinking about getting their donations frozen, not Snowden.
Barter?
I read a similar story many years ago. It was to point out that every time you made an electronic payment, “they” knew where you were. With GPS so common now, it’s even a better tracking tool.
I have been active in “barter” since I was a kid in the 60’s, it’s out there if you want it.
The full article explains that someone offered nude pics to assist with her crowdfunding campaign.
We don’t need another Hulk movie. This movie needs an update:
I’ve wondered about computed barter for people stuck in a cash economy by debt, etc.
Strictly local, and an algorythm replaces the fungibility function of cash.
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Reputable networked delivery offers are matched in a bartered chain.
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Pending transactions are escrowed until chain completion.
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Upon chain completion, the contracts validate and notices issue to the “chained” parties for delivery.
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Gnu 3.0 public license, and no corporate bottlenecking.
So … I need groceries and household items, and I offer cleaning and mechanical services. The system checks and matches offers until there’s a completed chain entitling me to delivery of the stuff and obligating me perform services.
EDIT - There’s a hidden benefit maybe. Sevices are easier to barter than goods because skills are inalienable. I guess I have to say less alienable after the last 200 years. But, anyway, open source tech (cars, washing machines, etc) is better for service bartering.
It is certain that if cash disappears, something will be invented to take its place. The only way totalitarians like Sunstein can get their way is through the direct imposition of terror. The current story shows that they have already probably gone as far as they can go in that direction without provoking serious resistance.
Curiously, the dissolution of regular employment and the establishment of permanent precarity and piecework is going to have a similar effect – the creation of a large number of people, relations, and activities which the ruling class and its government will have trouble perceiving, much less controlling.
It’s not just state actors, of course.
The payments and banking industry love the idea of getting rid of cash transactions as well, because that means they get to take fees off of both ends of every single transaction that is forced through the system.
the monitoring and control facilities work together with this. Corporate and state power working together- there’s a word for that, isn’t there.
To be fair, it sounds like the real problem in this specific case is that there’s no free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare. The mere idea of raising money for someone to have hospital treatment sounds absurd if you live in a country where it’s provided by the state.
You could barter.
This story raises quite a few issues. One could also spin off into a thread about prejudice against sex workers. Of course, repression and demonization of sexuality is a tied and tested means of social control.
ETA: “tied and tested”? Paging Dr. Freud…
No surprise. Its the logical extension of cutting off card processing to wikileaks.
Noted constitutional law scholar Cass Sunstein?
… Totalitarian?
European style health systems don’t really care how you got it, they just want to cure it. Just another reason for repofundies to object to socialised medicine.
Only people involved in illicit activities, like drug dealing and under ground hamster fight betting, need large amounts of cash.
Is this a thing? Cause I kind of want it to be a thing, that causes a big political stir, making national headlines. Please.
