Speaker 1: Welcome back to our classic episode Friends and Neighbors. Fellow
Speaker 1: conspiracy realist. You know, guys, one thing that I love
Speaker 1: about New York and New York City and Japan in particular,
Speaker 1: is that in areas of both of those societies there's
Speaker 1: still very much a cash is king mentality.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, interesting. Well, you know the problem with cash. It
Speaker 2: takes a long time to trace, even with those little
Speaker 2: numbers on the sides of each one.
Speaker 1: Right traceability. A lot of us listening to this episode
Speaker 1: automatically thought, who uses cash nowadays? Now me, right, right?
Speaker 1: I use cash pretty frequently, as I believe you do
Speaker 1: as well, Matt. We know that the move toward the
Speaker 1: digital currency and digital dollar is supported by big banks
Speaker 1: as well as some countries. So in this classic episode,
Speaker 1: we are going to explore a world without cash. From
Speaker 1: UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled
Speaker 1: with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn
Speaker 1: this stuff they don't want you to know. A production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is no They.
Speaker 1: Call me Ben. We are joined as always with our
Speaker 1: super producer Paul Kasher credit decand most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want.
Speaker 3: You to know.
Speaker 1: Now, we'll answer this question in a second, but we
Speaker 1: want you to think about this as well while you're listening.
Speaker 1: What was the last thing you purchased, literally, well, the
Speaker 1: last thing you purchased before you turned on today's episode.
Speaker 1: Did you use cash? Did you use a card or
Speaker 1: ben Bucks? Or you a person who still writes a
Speaker 1: check if you set a card. In fact, if you're
Speaker 1: one of the people who just heard those questions and
Speaker 1: scoffed and thought it's twenty twenty. Who on Earth bothers
Speaker 1: with cash? Then congratulations, you're not alone? So what about us?
Speaker 1: If as long as we're not, you know, confessing to
Speaker 1: anything illegal. What's the last thing you guys bought?
Speaker 3: Was it drugs?
Speaker 2: It was drugs?
Speaker 1: Wasn't no?
Speaker 2: Mine was going to be groceries? Quick story. I was
Speaker 2: at a Kroger local grocer and as soon as I've
Speaker 2: got about probably one hundred dollars more maybe even than
Speaker 2: that worth of food in my cart, I take it
Speaker 2: up to check out and all of their network goes down,
Speaker 2: and yeah, and all I got on me are cards,
Speaker 2: and I go, oh, well, I can't put this on
Speaker 2: the old corporate card anymore. I was really hoping to
Speaker 2: get away with it, and I would have it wasn't
Speaker 2: for those darned kids anyway. Okay, anyway, So I ran
Speaker 2: across the street and I got cash out, which I
Speaker 2: never do anymore, took it back over there, and by
Speaker 2: the time I got back, the network was up. So really,
Speaker 2: it's not a story. I didn't have to use my cash.
Speaker 2: Don't rob me. I'm not carrying it on my person.
Speaker 1: But you did, so you ultimately ended up purchasing with
Speaker 1: a card. Yeah, I'm sorry, No, no, no, It makes
Speaker 1: sense though, because it's.
Speaker 2: But it's the only reason. Yeah, yeah, unless I'm traveling,
Speaker 2: and you know, that's really the only time I'll take
Speaker 2: out a little bit of extra cash, as it like
Speaker 2: maybe something will come up that I won't anticipate. But
Speaker 2: other than that, do you carry cash, guys?
Speaker 3: I keep on my cash in my shoe, all of
Speaker 3: it for a power move. When I have to like
Speaker 3: give someone some cash, I pull it out on my
Speaker 3: shoe and see if they'll take it. That's actually from
Speaker 3: an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that it's never happened
Speaker 3: to me. They'll take your shoe cash. Yeah, I used to.
Speaker 1: I used to carry cash in a couple of different
Speaker 1: parts of my person when I was traveling in sketchy
Speaker 1: area is and then also when I am in cities
Speaker 1: and used public transit a lot. It's just an old
Speaker 1: habit to always have. Don't This may sound paranoid, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I strongly believe
Speaker 1: in not carrying all of your stuff like that in
Speaker 1: one area. You know what I mean, If you have
Speaker 1: something in your wallet, having twenty or fifty bucks in
Speaker 1: your shoe is also not as crazy as it sounds.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a smart idea. This this interesting way, nol.
Speaker 1: Did you did you? What did you buy? Is there
Speaker 1: anything that pops in mind where like your last purchase
Speaker 1: or something with cash in general? In general?
Speaker 3: I thought, I went to the breakfast bar at Whole
Speaker 3: Foods this morning, m hmm, and I actually paid using
Speaker 3: my Apple Pay on my phone, where you can just
Speaker 3: hold it up to the RFID reader and then you
Speaker 3: put your fingerprint in and then you put in your
Speaker 3: pin and you're done.
Speaker 1: Wow. And this as long as these systems are in place.
Speaker 1: We see a lot of for a cashless society. Right,
Speaker 1: You don't have to haul around large amounts of bills,
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about counting out or receiving change.
Speaker 1: It really can be when everything works as simple as
Speaker 1: putting your phone up to the RFID reader.
Speaker 2: And it puts a level of difficulty between you and
Speaker 2: a potential person who's going to rob you, because they
Speaker 2: can't just take your card and then immediately use it. Generally,
Speaker 2: there's some steps you have to take.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then again in theory, right, So that's today's question.
Speaker 1: What happens in a world where these sorts of interactions
Speaker 1: Matt at the grocery store, Noel at the breakfast buffet.
Speaker 1: What happens when those cashless transactions are the norm? What
Speaker 1: happens when they're the mandate? Well, here are the facts.
Speaker 1: For anybody in the audience today who happens to be
Speaker 1: a dragon sitting atop a pile of cash, treasure, blood,
Speaker 1: and gold, don't worry just yet. Cash is still king,
Speaker 1: as they say, at least for now. That's because it represents,
Speaker 1: even today the most frequent method of payment in the US.
Speaker 1: Overall that that equals out to about thirty one percent
Speaker 1: of all consumer transactions. And that's more than electronic transactions
Speaker 1: credit cards, debit cards, or of course checks.
Speaker 2: That's worldwide or no, that's.
Speaker 3: US base, that's just in the US, just in the US.
Speaker 2: Thirty one such a surprising statistic to me.
Speaker 1: The US also lags behind some countries, which we'll explore
Speaker 1: a few examples in a moment. But this also makes
Speaker 1: me think, when's the last time you saw somebody write
Speaker 1: a check?
Speaker 3: It's I mean, who even takes checks anymore? It's my question.
Speaker 1: I write, the last time I saw a check or
Speaker 1: wrote a check, even interactive with a check, it was
Speaker 1: for rental agreement.
Speaker 3: That was what it was for me too, And I
Speaker 3: didn't have any checks. So you go check, go get
Speaker 3: checks to write a check, and.
Speaker 1: They don't ever sell just one check unless you get
Speaker 1: cashier's check.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. I'm trying to think of other methods.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure some doctors' offices, like if you're paying
Speaker 2: a cope or something, we'll accept a check.
Speaker 1: And grocery stores they also both have demographics that will
Speaker 1: tend to include older people exactly.
Speaker 3: It just seems yeah, you're right, especially the older people.
Speaker 3: That's just more of like a you know, old school
Speaker 3: way of paying that people don't want to fully phase
Speaker 3: out because it makes certain customers uncomfortable. They want to
Speaker 3: be able to do things the way they're used to
Speaker 3: being able to do things. But inherently checks are very
Speaker 3: inefficient means of paying because it takes a while for
Speaker 3: the money to come out of your account. There's the
Speaker 3: whole joke of don't cash this till Monday, you know,
Speaker 3: like checks in the mail, checks in the mail, or aka,
Speaker 3: I'm writing you a check that at this particular point
Speaker 3: in time isn't any good. That's a thing that that
Speaker 3: that is a sort of a pitfall of check writing
Speaker 3: and accepting really more than anything.
Speaker 1: But unlike credit cards, checks do not incur interest in
Speaker 1: that way. So that's one appeal people could see. Also,
Speaker 1: some people have the comfort, especially if they're locked into
Speaker 1: the technology, they have the comfort of physically writing out
Speaker 1: their ledger, balancing their checkbook. You know, for some people
Speaker 1: that can feel the way that people have certain religions
Speaker 1: feel when they are handling rosaries. I say certain religions,
Speaker 1: but you know, like Catholicism, I guess would be the
Speaker 1: main one yes, I'm not a rosary surgeon or doctor.
Speaker 3: I think there are more than just Catholic Eastern Orthodox.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just know that that's one of them.
Speaker 3: So was that the beads thing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we see that despite the fact that so
Speaker 1: many transactions do still occur in cash, for a number
Speaker 1: of years, the United States and many many other places
Speaker 1: have been moving away from physical currency. It's true. Fewer
Speaker 1: and fewer adults are using printed or minted US currency
Speaker 1: billsing coins at all. Now there are some people or
Speaker 1: just like, why would I touch cash? It's it's dirty smells.
Speaker 1: We have some uh, we have some filthy statistics about
Speaker 1: about physical currency in earlier episodes.
Speaker 3: You don't like touching change, But how do you feel
Speaker 3: about cash?
Speaker 1: I'm okay with it, You're okay with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the tactile ness of it all works for you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and thank you for checking, by the way, making sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a.
Speaker 2: Lot more thong contact with the bills though.
Speaker 3: Thong contact.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm there for.
Speaker 3: Oh, you mean like in the club.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming in the club or dug club.
Speaker 1: I guess, Well, the thong is what you make of it,
Speaker 1: you know, Well.
Speaker 3: You know, I keep my cash in my shoes. Some
Speaker 3: people keep cash in their thong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you might even have a like a little extra
Speaker 1: compartment maybe at a hip.
Speaker 2: Wait, is a thong not a shoe? I thought we
Speaker 2: were talking.
Speaker 3: That's a type of flip flop. Yes, is a component
Speaker 3: of the flip flop. I guess you could call them thongs. Wait,
Speaker 3: so if people say that, then what are we talking about?
Speaker 1: Paul shrugs and says, yes, I was talking about underwear.
Speaker 1: I was talking about sillacious undergarments.
Speaker 3: O Oh wow, that don't be cool. You knew what
Speaker 3: you were talking about. I had no idea. My mom
Speaker 3: keeps her cell phone in her brazier. Is that weird?
Speaker 1: A lot of people keep their stuff at knives, Uh,
Speaker 1: gas cards, probably bundles of cash, sheepers, guns, bundles of cash,
Speaker 1: money rugs.
Speaker 3: I want to see that make a come back.
Speaker 1: It's still around. Money clips are still around, as are
Speaker 1: money belts, which are like the nerdy pocket protectors you
Speaker 1: wear abroad.
Speaker 3: Wait, so is that like a fanny pack exclusively for cash? Uh?
Speaker 1: It doesn't have the carrying capacity of fanning packs.
Speaker 3: But yeah, most.
Speaker 1: Money belts will be worn underclothing and they will strap
Speaker 1: around like a fanning pack.
Speaker 3: Not all.
Speaker 1: You can get some cool ones. They're like a doctor.
Speaker 1: Uh it's not the words probably not doctors clutch, but
Speaker 1: you know, I'm talking about the shoulder holsters for guns
Speaker 1: that you see in different detective course, stective films and
Speaker 1: words of fiction. This is this is interesting though. To
Speaker 1: get back to this idea of few people using printed currency,
Speaker 1: According to the Pew Research Center, about three and ten
Speaker 1: Americans said they go an entire week without touching cash
Speaker 1: at all, and that number is risen in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: Used to be a quarter of the population. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, the people who said that all or
Speaker 1: nearly all of their purchases were made using cash, the
Speaker 1: people were the opposite of the card holders. That number
Speaker 1: was twenty four percent and twenty fifteen, and now it's
Speaker 1: fallen to eighteen percent, and that trend seems set to continue.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of research going into this on the
Speaker 1: side of surprise, the banking system.
Speaker 2: And Facebook and Facebook.
Speaker 1: Yes, Facebook wants to have its own currency.
Speaker 2: I'll check this out. In this survey of two thousand Americans,
Speaker 2: US Bank found that half fifty percent of respondents said
Speaker 2: they carry cash with them less than half the time
Speaker 2: they're out. That makes sense. I can identify with that,
Speaker 2: get it. When they do carry cash, Seventy six percent
Speaker 2: said they keep less than fifty bucks on hand, and
Speaker 2: nearly fifty percent have less than twenty dollars when they're
Speaker 2: walking around, And that I think makes a lot of
Speaker 2: sense when you're talking about the amount of money you
Speaker 2: get generally out of an ATM or something, which is
Speaker 2: I would say primary, the primary way you get cash
Speaker 2: unless it's a gift or something sure, and those are
Speaker 2: generally not always going to be twenties. So I can
Speaker 2: imagine a twenty that you carry around because you might
Speaker 2: need it, or forty.
Speaker 1: Maybe your emergency stash, right exactly, if you're in a
Speaker 1: situation where you need to pay for casual in transaction.
Speaker 1: As we know, there are a lot of places, especially
Speaker 1: in larger cities, that are casually.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they won't take anything above a twenty a
Speaker 2: lot of times.
Speaker 1: Right, right, that's absolutely true. We see a divided demographic.
Speaker 1: There are social implications to the cash list society because
Speaker 1: there are surprising divides between the way that we use
Speaker 1: currency digital or physical today. Even before some weird sci
Speaker 1: fi stuff. We know that there are clear demographic divides here.
Speaker 1: One of the first, which should not surprise anyone, is age.
Speaker 1: The second one should surprise people, But the first one
Speaker 1: is age. We know that the younger you are, the
Speaker 1: less likely you are to use cash.
Speaker 3: Funny thing. I was actually at the courthouse the other
Speaker 3: day for jury duty. I was very lucky that I
Speaker 3: actually got selected to be on a jury, and you
Speaker 3: were lucky. Well, I didn't get to the lucky Yes, okay,
Speaker 3: but I was selected to be on a jury and
Speaker 3: the case wrapped in that same day. And I have
Speaker 3: to say I actually, quite once I made peace with
Speaker 3: the whole thing that I was going to be there,
Speaker 3: you know, until seven o'clock at night, and knew that
Speaker 3: it was pretty much guaranteed to wrap that day. I
Speaker 3: really enjoyed the whole process. But in the cafeteria of
Speaker 3: of the courthouse, they say twenties only accepted for purchases
Speaker 3: over a certain dollar amount, which was a very specific
Speaker 3: caveat that I'd never seen before for accepting twenties.
Speaker 2: That's odd, really too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen I've seen that before. And then it's
Speaker 1: usually I would say, rather than something the farious that
Speaker 1: typically is going to be the due to the fact
Speaker 1: that the tills only have so much change they can
Speaker 1: make right, you know, it makes sense. They probably can't
Speaker 1: go to a bank and get that crack down to fives.
Speaker 3: It makes sense.
Speaker 1: And also how many people, how many people make a
Speaker 1: tiny purchase to break a twenty so that they can
Speaker 1: pay for parking or they can pay for some other
Speaker 1: related incidents.
Speaker 3: I didn't think about the parking deal because that's a
Speaker 3: big part of going to the courthouse, is PA for parking.
Speaker 1: They don't validate it at the courthouse. Yeah, definitely don't.
Speaker 1: The benefits of citizenship do not go that far.
Speaker 2: Nope. So let's come back to these demographics really fast. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I want to hit on age, which again makes I
Speaker 2: think a lot of sense when you're thinking about this issue.
Speaker 2: So younger people, let's call them millennials, tend to ditch
Speaker 2: f physical cash for you know, stuff that you can
Speaker 2: do on your phone or things you can use virtually
Speaker 2: like credit, debit, digital payments, Apple, pay venmo Zell. It
Speaker 2: just goes on and on. PayPal. In fact, more than
Speaker 2: one in ten millennials use this thing. They're digital wallet.
Speaker 2: The thing on your phone that you probably have access
Speaker 2: to right now if you want it. They use that
Speaker 2: for every purchase. And that is according to a separate
Speaker 2: report made by experience.
Speaker 1: Right So that's not pure research anymore, that's experience. And
Speaker 1: we see that overall, thirty four percent, let's call it
Speaker 1: one third of adults under the age of fifty typically
Speaker 1: don't use cash. That's that's a crazy number. People over
Speaker 1: fifty years old, the number is much lower. Only twenty
Speaker 1: three percent of people over fifty say I've gotten a
Speaker 1: whole week without using physical currency. But here is one
Speaker 1: of the distressing demographic divides. This is the one that
Speaker 1: should give us food for thought. We do see divisions
Speaker 1: along economic lines, along the lines of just straight income.
Speaker 1: It turns out, no matter who you are in the US,
Speaker 1: if you have an annual household income of over seventy
Speaker 1: five grand, you are more than twice as likely to
Speaker 1: avoid using physical cash than someone who's making thirty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars or less per year. That let's look at this
Speaker 1: a different way. Lower income adults in this country are
Speaker 1: four times as likely as higher income adults to say
Speaker 1: that they make all or almost all of their purchases
Speaker 1: with cold hard scratch cheddar. Pony bones is another one, right, do.
Speaker 3: We have another one? Wasn't there pony bones? That's a
Speaker 3: good one. Wan them. Okay, I don't know bread. Bread's good.
Speaker 3: I like I like bread.
Speaker 1: I want to bring back bread. Yeah, scrilla, scrilla is good.
Speaker 1: You said scratch aren't here? Scratch greatly catch. Well, that's
Speaker 1: a cool thing. This quote, out of context will sound strange.
Speaker 1: That's the cool thing about a capitalist society. You know,
Speaker 1: love it or hate it. People can use almost any
Speaker 1: term to describe money, and everyone else in the room
Speaker 1: will get it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I got like forty drags.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a couple of toe knuckles short on that.
Speaker 1: So I got the hamburger instead of the cheeseburger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was. I couldn't believe they wanted
Speaker 2: me to spend ninety nine more sclounced to upgrade to.
Speaker 1: That are scounced Yes, yeah, exactly. This is already a
Speaker 1: controversial topic, the idea of a world without physical currency,
Speaker 1: but it's only going to grow more controversial over the
Speaker 1: next few years, and we're going to see programming wars
Speaker 1: about it. This is going to be a hearts and
Speaker 1: minds conflict, especially in developed countries. They're experts out there
Speaker 1: who will tout the benefits of a cashlest economy, and
Speaker 1: they have valid points. They'll say, well, it's more safe
Speaker 1: for people working in retail, the people who work at
Speaker 1: all night convenience stores and have that sign that says
Speaker 1: we keep no more than x amount of dollars in
Speaker 1: the register and it's time released. We can't let you
Speaker 1: into the safe. That doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: You know, stick people up with a thumb drive in
Speaker 3: the future and say transfer all of your digital money
Speaker 3: to me. That's gonna make it a whole.
Speaker 2: Hell of a lot harder. Sounds sci fi, but I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure that's something that could happen. Those card readers.
Speaker 2: You can just put it in your cell phone and
Speaker 2: if somebody has a gun and a friend has a
Speaker 2: cell phone with a card reader, you're.
Speaker 3: Talking about square based robberies. Yeah, robbering and robbing an individual.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm taking you out of.
Speaker 3: Their pocket, holding them up and saying swiper. That's actually
Speaker 3: a really good point. Matter that happens a lot. That
Speaker 3: happens a lot. Does it work. I've never heard reports
Speaker 3: of that, but it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1: People get would robbed and forced to go to ATMs happened. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's very common, but that's still a cash situation.
Speaker 3: But it starts with the card. It does. But you could,
Speaker 3: are u you that you could track the robbery if
Speaker 3: someone used their.
Speaker 1: Space and you can, but think about so. We have
Speaker 1: many people listening today who have found uh, fraudulent charges
Speaker 1: on their cards. The bank will hopefully return that, refund
Speaker 1: it whatever. But the person who did that, you know,
Speaker 1: who took that cash or made usually made a purchase somewhere.
Speaker 1: They don't have to worry about it. They're gone, they've
Speaker 1: skidaddled to the horizon and are you know, like capering
Speaker 1: around the pile of other stolen credit cards they have.
Speaker 1: But that so we already see holes in the argument
Speaker 1: of safety, right. We also see to the point you
Speaker 1: just made know what, We also see that there is
Speaker 1: an ease of tracking otherwise suspicious or occulted payments that
Speaker 1: exist in the gray, red and black markets. For anybody
Speaker 1: wondering what the gray red and black markets are and
Speaker 1: what the difference is between them, the black market is
Speaker 1: all the illegal dark Web stuff. The gray market would
Speaker 1: be things that are not inherently illegal, but maybe skirt
Speaker 1: some of the regulations in a transaction, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: The red market is all about human trafficking.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: No, you're right, the red market is organ trade.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I thought we were going there, but I
Speaker 2: wasn't sure. I thought maybe you had something up your sleeve.
Speaker 1: And check out our shows on the red market, and
Speaker 1: every show we do somehow touches on the black market
Speaker 1: at some point. But with this we also see a
Speaker 1: lot of criticism. So just as there are proponents on
Speaker 1: the side of the concept of a cashless economy, there
Speaker 1: are vocal critics, and they're asking, could a truly cashless
Speaker 1: society just be another step along the path toward an
Speaker 1: all powerful or wellyan dictatorship. Will this spell the end
Speaker 1: of financial privacy if such a thing still exist today,
Speaker 1: which is a different question, And then what will a
Speaker 1: world without cash mean? And what happens in the future
Speaker 1: where bills and coins literally just become collectible items, you know,
Speaker 1: like old stamps. Are the critics, in short right to
Speaker 1: be concerned.
Speaker 2: We'll learn about that right after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1: The short answer is absolutely and it seems that both
Speaker 1: the proponents of this concept and the opponents of this
Speaker 1: concept are going to see their theories in action. The
Speaker 1: rubber will hit the road, and much sooner rather than later.
Speaker 1: In fact, the cash list society already exist in some places.
Speaker 1: It's much further along than we might like to think.
Speaker 3: Right So in Sweden right now, only one percent of
Speaker 3: the economy operates on currency, on cash, on paper and coins.
Speaker 3: That is a tenth of the rate elsewhere in Europe.
Speaker 3: We know the Swedes are always up on the latest trends,
Speaker 3: so that makes sense, and they're really good at kind
Speaker 3: of streamlining things and making things pretty efficient. So it's
Speaker 3: interesting to see how it's working out there. And this
Speaker 3: is only one eighth of the rate here in the
Speaker 3: United States of folks and areas that are going cash list.
Speaker 3: So the New York Times says it only about one
Speaker 3: in ten Swedes paid for anything, anything at all in
Speaker 3: cash in twenty seventeen. That's amazing. Think about that.
Speaker 1: You are one of ten people in Sweden you meet
Speaker 1: up once a year and you say, what did you buy?
Speaker 1: Because you have weird Swedish parties, I don't know. That
Speaker 1: means that only one person in the room has been
Speaker 1: cash on anything.
Speaker 3: You should call that number, ask a Swede and see
Speaker 3: if if they bought anything with cash in twenty seven.
Speaker 1: That's a great that's a great idea. Unfortunately they pulled
Speaker 1: the number. I no longer call a Swede. Shame. It
Speaker 1: is a shame. I had a lot of fun with
Speaker 1: that one, and I hate phone call.
Speaker 3: You actually called it? Yeah, ask why not? I just
Speaker 3: you know, it's one of the things you talk about
Speaker 3: but you never do. With Ben, you're a man of action.
Speaker 1: Well, I spoke with a one time. Particularly sticks out
Speaker 1: my head. I spoke with a delightful retired lady and
Speaker 1: it was a great experience. I hope she's doing well.
Speaker 1: I don't think she listens to the show.
Speaker 3: So what are what are the big the big red flags,
Speaker 3: the big concerns about you know, you know, we always
Speaker 3: think of Sweden as everyone's happy and idyllic and living
Speaker 3: in you know, tiny homes or whatever and not spending cash.
Speaker 1: They seem happy, they're rocking ABBA twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1: You know, that's right, that has to be the only way.
Speaker 1: But what's that's what's the issue. If they if they
Speaker 1: say they seem like they like it, they seem like
Speaker 1: they have a good quality of life. Where does where
Speaker 1: does it break down? Yeah, yeah, that's the that's the
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollar question or one dollar depending on how
Speaker 1: inflation works out.
Speaker 3: We have easily.
Speaker 1: Discernible concerns about a cash list economy, and no doubt
Speaker 1: in this show we will be preaching to the choir partially. First,
Speaker 1: we have to look back at what we've already proven.
Speaker 1: We've proven there is an inherent economic divide between the
Speaker 1: haves and the have nots when it comes to cash.
Speaker 1: The less money you make, the more likely you are
Speaker 1: to use cash. In general. It's very broad brush, but
Speaker 1: so far everything we found proves that this is the case.
Speaker 1: This means that it is highly likely that a purely
Speaker 1: digital society could spell disaster for low income residents people
Speaker 1: who tend to use physical currency. So to introduce some
Speaker 1: jargon here, which is I think a little bit disturbing,
Speaker 1: there are a couple industry terms. One is unbanked and
Speaker 1: one is underbanked. They mean what they sound like. Underbanked
Speaker 1: means that there's a financial institution that says, hey, this
Speaker 1: person should be more included in our system. And unbanked means.
Speaker 1: I don't know how, but this joker is living under
Speaker 1: the table. They're only using cash for everything, They've deleted
Speaker 1: their Facebook, you know, et cetera, et cetera. It has
Speaker 1: these implications that if you are not participating in the
Speaker 1: financial system, you are either deprived or potentially dangerous. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit of a what do you call it,
Speaker 1: Chomsky esque Bernese esque packaging.
Speaker 2: Well, we can see how that somewhat makes sense, especially
Speaker 2: if you think with my migration issues here in the
Speaker 2: United States alone, like just residency, and if you are
Speaker 2: here by some means that is outside of the legal
Speaker 2: ways of staying here in the United States, then the
Speaker 2: only way to go is to not have a bank
Speaker 2: account and to use cash for everything, because that if
Speaker 2: you were to get a bank account, your identity would
Speaker 2: be attached to it and you'd be found out.
Speaker 3: It's the same as voter id laws. There's arguments that
Speaker 3: that disenfranchises people because it affects, you know, people that
Speaker 3: are in poverty who maybe can't can't get an idea
Speaker 3: or for whatever reason, or living outside the law in
Speaker 3: some capacity, yeah.
Speaker 2: Or never have enough money at any one time to
Speaker 2: keep in a bank. So to the point where they're
Speaker 2: not being charged for not having enough money in the
Speaker 2: bank at all.
Speaker 3: Times, because let's not forget that is absolutely a thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: which is so insane going for the privilege of getting
Speaker 3: your money out.
Speaker 1: Future historians will take note of that. I would hope
Speaker 1: on this point we also see the problem of prerequisite paperwork.
Speaker 1: Right you want a bank account and you don't have
Speaker 1: proof of residency one, maybe proof of identity two. And
Speaker 1: similar to the voter ID stuff, this is this is
Speaker 1: a way, I know it feels like a strong word,
Speaker 1: but this is a way to potentially financially disenfranchise people
Speaker 1: and they are forced to work with the smaller and
Speaker 1: smaller slice of the financial pie that does allow cash dealing.
Speaker 1: Right now, there is a trend, the downward trend. Fewer
Speaker 1: and fewer people are quote unquote unbanked or underbanked. But
Speaker 1: between five and eighteen percent of people living in this
Speaker 1: country currently don't possess credit cards. And I would say,
Speaker 1: well done. You know, no judgment if you have one.
Speaker 1: They are useful, right if you're responsible with them. But
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who have very valid
Speaker 1: reasons that they don't want to interact with credit cards,
Speaker 1: and this leads us to the ultimate question regarding this
Speaker 1: first concern. Should paying customers, potentially paying customers be barred
Speaker 1: from stores or restaurants because they don't have, you know,
Speaker 1: an American Express or a Visa or a Discover or
Speaker 1: of course the last word in credit a diner's club.
Speaker 3: That's still a thing. Seemed to have maybe gone the
Speaker 3: way of checks.
Speaker 1: It's still around. Surely, surely diners Club is still around.
Speaker 1: Who wants to dine and not be in a club?
Speaker 2: Is that similar to a triple A or is that?
Speaker 3: I think the idea is that you subscribe to it
Speaker 3: and it gives you discounts places that accept it or something.
Speaker 1: It was the first card really, it was like the
Speaker 1: first you would call payment card company in history. I
Speaker 1: think Now technically it's owned by Discover, So there you go.
Speaker 1: So diners Club is no longer independent.
Speaker 3: Institution, though you know they want to hold on to
Speaker 3: that branding.
Speaker 1: I watched one of the old commercials. You can still
Speaker 1: see them on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Can we talk about something here, guys. Yeah, the concept
Speaker 2: of not using digital currencies or credit cards out of
Speaker 2: preference because they you just somebody doesn't like it because
Speaker 2: my Dad is one of those people where he very
Speaker 2: much will be carrying around cash on purpose to do
Speaker 2: everything he's going to do for that day or for
Speaker 2: that trip or that week. He will make all the
Speaker 2: purchases in cash and then he's done with it.
Speaker 1: And that's tremendously convenient, right, because then that makes a
Speaker 1: purchase stand alone.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, and his books are balanced because he did
Speaker 2: that one transaction of taking the cash out.
Speaker 1: And he's right. So this leads into the huge second concern,
Speaker 1: which is privacy. And this is a concern that should
Speaker 1: be in the forefront of everyone's mind. It's only becoming
Speaker 1: more important over time because, like you said, Matt, many
Speaker 1: people who do not use credit cards avoid them out
Speaker 1: of preference rather than necessity. So do we start telling
Speaker 1: these people then that they must use these methods of
Speaker 1: payment while everyone knows very well that we're essentially making
Speaker 1: these people contribute to increasingly thorough and sophisticated profiles of
Speaker 1: their individual lives each and every time they make a purchase.
Speaker 1: And then do we just be pollyanna about it, as
Speaker 1: Dan would say, do we just sort of fiddle d
Speaker 1: d our way around the fact that this is one
Speaker 1: piece of a larger profile that may involve other aspects
Speaker 1: of your personal life. Do we ignore those implications? We cannot.
Speaker 1: We'll dive further into the rabbit hole. After a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsors, we're back. Let's go a little further
Speaker 1: away from the light of what's proven and explore the
Speaker 1: shadows beyond the things that could happen, that might happen
Speaker 1: that haven't happened yet, or, most distressingly, the things that
Speaker 1: maybe happen happening now despite the fact that no one's
Speaker 1: really talking about them on your local news affiliate. This
Speaker 1: is the first one. What if private financial powers are
Speaker 1: pushing cashless currency as a way to rest control of
Speaker 1: money from the state. This may feel kind of small
Speaker 1: for some of us, but the fact of the matter
Speaker 1: is that historically, the ability to print money, the ability
Speaker 1: to be the person who determines the value of whatever
Speaker 1: these coupons or articles of faith may be. That ability
Speaker 1: the sovereign creator, originator of currency. This power is something
Speaker 1: that is tremendously important to states. It's up there with
Speaker 1: having the ability to legally kill people. It's up there
Speaker 1: with having the ability to have a standing army. Right.
Speaker 1: This is a life and death thing. Economically for life
Speaker 1: to state actors.
Speaker 2: How do you pay for a standing army if you
Speaker 2: can't print your own currency, You've got to rely on
Speaker 2: somebody else.
Speaker 1: How do you maintain an army if you cannot be
Speaker 1: the one who determines the value of money? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? So what if this? What if this
Speaker 1: becomes something where let's say, the United States of America
Speaker 1: or Sweden, New Zealands, whatever whatever place you wanna you
Speaker 1: wanna name. What if there's a situation where a country's
Speaker 1: entire currency then becomes controlled by a consortium of financial
Speaker 1: powers or a single financial power. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: What if Chase Manhattan one day decides to you know,
Speaker 1: that they think Nigeria is a problem, so they just
Speaker 1: remove their access at financial network where they say, because
Speaker 1: we are the source, because we are the faucet through
Speaker 1: which this financial fluid flows, we will cut off the faucet.
Speaker 3: And like, I mean, you could argue bad pr move.
Speaker 3: Sure is it their right to do that? Yes, if
Speaker 3: they control it?
Speaker 1: I mean, might makes right in this situation, you know,
Speaker 1: especially if they have the backing of other antagonistic state
Speaker 1: powers and Nigeria rightly says, hey, we should be in
Speaker 1: charge of our currency, and then maybe Western Powers say, nah,
Speaker 1: we talk to the folks at Chase Manhattan. We've got
Speaker 1: a pretty good case. We're gonna make this a win
Speaker 1: win for everyone. Right.
Speaker 2: It's weird. It reminds me of resource extraction problems in
Speaker 2: other countries, like with oil and the control of over
Speaker 2: oil fields, and whether it's a state run thing or
Speaker 2: a privately run thing. And then what happens when somebody
Speaker 2: comes in and wants yours, wants to control yours, like
Speaker 2: a foreign entity wants to come in and control your
Speaker 2: currency or the transactions at least that occur in your country.
Speaker 2: M h.
Speaker 1: I mean, and you know, evidence proves I don't know why.
Speaker 1: This is why everybody is still pretending this is some
Speaker 1: sort of controversial or hot take. Evidence proves that the
Speaker 1: reason Western Powers got involved in Libya and create a
Speaker 1: regime change was entirely because the French government wanted to
Speaker 1: retain hegemonic control over the currency. And I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not defending Momar Gadaffi. I'm not picking a horse in
Speaker 1: the race. That's just what happened. And you can you
Speaker 1: can google it, you can search it because at this
Speaker 1: point the truth of that conflict does not matter to
Speaker 1: I mean to the people who would censor it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, baby, it's passed the news cycles whatever, right,
Speaker 2: And that went quick too. We talked about that for
Speaker 2: like two weeks.
Speaker 1: Dusty tones of currency and international trade? Why why would
Speaker 1: you dedicate time to that?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 1: The Mandalorian season one is out? Huh maybe a baby
Speaker 1: Yoda was on currency? People would care more or the child?
Speaker 3: She speaking of currency and baby Yoda? Did you hear
Speaker 3: that Build a Bear is coming out with a baby
Speaker 3: Yoda plushy fly off the shelves. Man, that's going to
Speaker 3: become its own currency. I tell you the kids, they
Speaker 3: love the baby Yoda. You know who else loves the
Speaker 3: baby Yoda?
Speaker 1: Everyone?
Speaker 3: Literally everyone else.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, yeah, we'll get your get your cashless wallets out,
Speaker 2: start scanning them at the Build a Bear.
Speaker 1: I mean, make no mistake, right, That's what people want
Speaker 1: you to do. That's what the people in control of
Speaker 1: the money want you to do. They want you to
Speaker 1: not spend cash to buy your Yoda Build a Bear.
Speaker 3: Well, and funny too, the language that even like you know,
Speaker 3: Apple uses in terms of the app on your phone
Speaker 3: that stores all your your money and your cards that
Speaker 3: you can scan in. They call it a wallet. Everyone's
Speaker 3: using that terminology because people are comfortable with that, you know.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, they're trying they
Speaker 3: it would behoove them to move away from a cashless
Speaker 3: economy everyone. They want people to spend money on the
Speaker 3: line and have it be one click purchases using your thumbprint,
Speaker 3: you know, like so you don't even have time to
Speaker 3: think about it.
Speaker 1: Right, we do. We do see some interesting psychology at
Speaker 1: play there, and this has moved to be absolutely crystal clear.
Speaker 1: This has moved far beyond some kind of boardroom conversation
Speaker 1: or some professors different opinions arguing in a civil manner
Speaker 1: the war for how you spend money, and it is
Speaker 1: turning into a war that this war has gone to
Speaker 1: the streets. If you live in the Western world, you
Speaker 1: have seen banks shutting down, branches, shutting down ATMs, right,
Speaker 1: automatic teller machines. This is not for nothing are they
Speaker 1: doing this. This is an attempt to push consumers into
Speaker 1: using those digital payment systems first, and using that digital
Speaker 1: banking infrastructure, because again, there is tremendous power in own
Speaker 1: i mean the system. I would also say there's a
Speaker 1: profit motive. This isn't necessarily this isn't inherently nefarious if
Speaker 1: you believe what the official statements of the banks say.
Speaker 1: There's a clear cost cutting motive here, because if you
Speaker 1: have a branch, you have to have staff, you have
Speaker 1: to have security, You have to pay these people, right
Speaker 1: and if you replace them with a self service app,
Speaker 1: your banking app, you can check on your phone. You
Speaker 1: can just use that information to buy things. You can
Speaker 1: put your card number in your Amazon account and what
Speaker 1: have you.
Speaker 2: You can take a picture of your check if you
Speaker 2: just got paid and it gets deposited.
Speaker 1: What That's pretty nuts, right, And you have to wonder
Speaker 1: about the technology there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, that just blew my mind. When I watched
Speaker 2: my wife do that, I went, you can wide, no, no,
Speaker 2: you can't take that to the bank right now.
Speaker 3: I didn't believe it at first either.
Speaker 1: I think has some security issues. But when you put
Speaker 1: everybody into a system like this, you're saving the executives
Speaker 1: of the banking institutions a ton of money, right, and
Speaker 1: that does translate to the bottom line, saving shareholders cash
Speaker 1: as well. You're also allowing in a way you're allowing
Speaker 1: another revenue stream, a passive revenue stream, and you, the customer,
Speaker 1: by the way, you get nothing.
Speaker 3: It's a Willy Wonka moment, right, Or it could be
Speaker 3: you believe in nothing Lebowski. That's what I'm making.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so that makes sense and it's a business. There's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that. But also people need to be
Speaker 1: aware that your transactions in an entirely electronic system become
Speaker 1: another package that can be sold to data aggregators without
Speaker 1: anything other than your blanket approval because you didn't read
Speaker 1: the terms and conditions when you clicked what Who.
Speaker 3: Would Who would do that? Who would not read the
Speaker 3: terms and conditions? Literally everybody?
Speaker 2: Yeah, as I say, all of the employees who just
Speaker 2: lost all their jobs to the app?
Speaker 3: Oh boy? But wait a minute, though, it is all
Speaker 3: these transactions are encrypted, right, I mean what are they selling?
Speaker 3: They're selling just the contents the Yeah, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: So you can't exactly tie it to an individual per se,
Speaker 3: but you can tie it to a demographic or you
Speaker 3: can tie it. Yeah, I wonder how it's used, if
Speaker 3: it's if it's anonymized in that way, like how granular
Speaker 3: are do you think that information gets for folks that
Speaker 3: buy it.
Speaker 1: It's still evolving.
Speaker 3: Really yeah, oh yeah interesting.
Speaker 1: And this I mean think about how if you are
Speaker 1: an Apple iPhone user, depending on the model of iPhone
Speaker 1: you have. Think about how if you spend time doing
Speaker 1: routine things, your phone, depending on the settings, will just
Speaker 1: start proposing alerts or alarms for you. Right that. It's
Speaker 1: it's a similar to similar reach into your brain. So
Speaker 1: banks did a Comcast move or Exfinity or whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it. So there was a when net
Speaker 1: neutrality was still a huge debate.
Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 1: Comcast was one of the companies lobbying intensely to remove
Speaker 1: net neutrality to be able to sell you an Internet
Speaker 1: agreement the same way that you would agree to a
Speaker 1: cable package like a la carte certain channels, right right,
Speaker 1: So you can you can pay for basic Google or Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: but then if you want to go visit something else,
Speaker 1: you have to pay the Internet service provider. So of
Speaker 1: course it's a cash grab obviously, But the main, the
Speaker 1: main point, the reason I bring this up is that
Speaker 1: when asked about this, Comcast said things like, well, we
Speaker 1: talked to consumers and they want more choice. That's what
Speaker 1: we're giving them. We're giving them more choice.
Speaker 3: That is such bulk.
Speaker 2: Well guess what the banks are saying, Hey, all these customers,
Speaker 2: they want to do everything online, they want to do
Speaker 2: everything electronically. We're giving them what they want.
Speaker 3: But that's such circular or like you know, inherently flawed logic,
Speaker 3: as they're saying, we're going to give you more choices
Speaker 3: by limiting your choices than selling you back the choices
Speaker 3: you originally had at an a la carte premium in
Speaker 3: the Comcast case.
Speaker 2: And this one is just they're just saying, hey, we'd
Speaker 2: rather do this the fast way through my phone or
Speaker 2: whatever than having to go to a bank, do cash,
Speaker 2: do that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Well, think about it, think about the argument this way.
Speaker 1: Let's let's walk through it. The argument for the financial
Speaker 1: institutions is, hey, we're not saying people have to do this.
Speaker 1: We are reacting to what our customers want because we
Speaker 1: are very customer focused. You know, we're here to make
Speaker 1: you guys happy. But what they're what they're actually doing,
Speaker 1: if you look at the behaviors and you look at
Speaker 1: the policies and play, their activities can form much more
Speaker 1: closely to a concept from behavioral economics. Which is called nudging.
Speaker 1: And we've talked about this a little bit when we
Speaker 1: talked about opting in or opting out on a driver
Speaker 1: to be an organ donor and a driver's license application.
Speaker 1: If people are automatically opted in, then they're much less
Speaker 1: likely to opt out. Also, shout out to a listener.
Speaker 1: You wrote to us and brought up a fantastic point.
Speaker 1: They said some people would be against being organ donors
Speaker 1: on their license because they genuinely believe that if they're
Speaker 1: in a traumatic injury and they're they're in a touch
Speaker 1: and go situation in a hospital and they are marked
Speaker 1: as an organ donor in some cases, the medical professionals
Speaker 1: might just let them go or not try as hard
Speaker 1: to keep them around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, shout out to Sterling for writing to us.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you so much, Sterling. That was a fantastic point.
Speaker 1: Nudging is like that. Let's say everybody does option A.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what option A is. It could be
Speaker 1: a burrito bowl, it could be uh, it could be
Speaker 1: paining with cash, you know, it could be uh, what
Speaker 1: are those what are those things that used to be
Speaker 1: on the front of pants, the.
Speaker 3: Little wrinkles, cleats, pleats.
Speaker 1: Yes, it could be pleated pants Option A, but you
Speaker 1: want whichever, whatever business you are, you want people to
Speaker 1: do option B. People are more used to option A.
Speaker 1: They understand it, they get it. That burrito bowl makes
Speaker 1: sense to me. I like to pay with cash. I've
Speaker 1: always had these pants. What you do instead, instead of
Speaker 1: saying you have to pay with a card, or you
Speaker 1: have to order the casadia, or you have to wear
Speaker 1: unpleated pants, you just make it slowly and slowly more
Speaker 1: difficult to get that burrito bowl. Now it's no longer
Speaker 1: on the menu. You can still order it, but you
Speaker 1: have to make it a custom order. You can still
Speaker 1: pay with cash, but you have to go to one
Speaker 1: certain line in the grocery store. You can still wear
Speaker 1: pleated pants, but they're not making any new ones.
Speaker 2: You can see this at work if you've ever this
Speaker 2: is odd. But if you've ever been on a turnpike
Speaker 2: or a you know a road where you have to
Speaker 2: pay for the privilege to a toll road where you
Speaker 2: have to pay for the privilege to be on that road,
Speaker 2: where in a lot of the lanes. When I was
Speaker 2: a kid growing up, it was all you would pay
Speaker 2: cash to get through or money basically, right, then it
Speaker 2: became well you can pay cash or you can pay
Speaker 2: with a card of some sword. Well, then it became
Speaker 2: a system where you can pay to put a thing
Speaker 2: on your car that lets you run like ride right
Speaker 2: through the toll and but generally you could just they
Speaker 2: had i think two lanes in a lot of places,
Speaker 2: especially on the floor to turnpike, where you could use
Speaker 2: that special cashless system, but then everybody else got to
Speaker 2: go and pay, and then you kind of over all
Speaker 2: the years, the cashless system began moving further and further
Speaker 2: to the right on the highway where all the lanes are.
Speaker 2: Then that and then you can only really take one
Speaker 2: or two lanes to pay with cash.
Speaker 1: Because the rest it's essentially a subscription service. You're subscribing
Speaker 1: to the road exactly. And it's true, well it's what
Speaker 1: you're doing with a card. Really, you're subscribing to a
Speaker 1: company that is just going to cycle money for you.
Speaker 1: You're you're subscribing to that sandbox. Everything you buy or
Speaker 1: purchase use in that sandbox. Their eyes are on it.
Speaker 1: Just not inherently bad. And also there's to be completely fair,
Speaker 1: there is a great argument about how you have how
Speaker 1: long it takes to make that shift. You know, you'd
Speaker 1: leave a lot of people out in the cold if
Speaker 1: you just turn everything cashless.
Speaker 3: That's what we're saying, right, Eventually that sandbox gets so
Speaker 3: big that you don't get to play if you don't
Speaker 3: participate in it, you know, because the sandbox takes up
Speaker 3: the entire playground and no more swings, it's all it's
Speaker 3: all just a sandbox, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1: And in that case, for this, if you add a
Speaker 1: million dollars cash in a cashless society, that doesn't matter
Speaker 1: until the moment you take that cash to a financial
Speaker 1: institution and they take that physical cash from you, and
Speaker 1: they put some bleeps in, some bloops in their computer system,
Speaker 1: and now you're a millionaire who can use their money.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. That is just I get the logic behind it,
Speaker 1: But if you think about it, like explaining that to
Speaker 1: an extraterrestrial or to someone who's never heard of money,
Speaker 1: that sounds kind of arbitrary.
Speaker 3: Is there an argument that this thing would also eliminate
Speaker 3: like some aspects of crime, Yeah, because I mean, you
Speaker 3: know the idea of money laundering is turning dirty cash
Speaker 3: into some other form or whatever. And if you can't
Speaker 3: spend the cash in the first I don't know, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, like yeah, or you know again,
Speaker 3: drugs is a transactional cash economy in and of itself,
Speaker 3: of scale, what happens then you know exactly And not
Speaker 3: that I know this personally, but I know a lot
Speaker 3: of drug dealers do take VENMO. That's a thing.
Speaker 1: You just be mindful of the emoji you choose to use.
Speaker 3: Right, So it's true.
Speaker 1: We should also say that cutting costs, in addition to
Speaker 1: increasing government surveillance potential, which I think is what we're
Speaker 1: getting at, it also could save a lot of money
Speaker 1: for a government because now think about it, you can
Speaker 1: shut down the mint. You don't need to pay like
Speaker 1: in the US, we pay a quasi public I believe
Speaker 1: is the euphemism we use. We pay a quasi public
Speaker 1: entity to create that stuff more or less out of nothing,
Speaker 1: and then charge us for doing that. And now you're
Speaker 1: out of that, you're potentially out of that relationship. So
Speaker 1: you can save money on infrastructure, you can increase whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call your surveillance system, probably call it
Speaker 1: national defense or security. You know, something people will vote for.
Speaker 1: But let's get back to the nudge. How do we
Speaker 1: do this. There's a journalist name Brett Scott who wrote
Speaker 1: a great piece for The Guardian over in the UK,
Speaker 1: and Scott found a great real life example. Until I
Speaker 1: heard your anecdote about toll roads, Matt, this was my
Speaker 1: favorite one. This is still my favorite one. We just
Speaker 1: pulled the quote. This should hit anybody. This should hit
Speaker 1: at home if you've been to a grocery store and
Speaker 1: here's the quote from Brett Scott.
Speaker 2: We can illustrate this with the example of self checkout
Speaker 2: tills at supermarkets. Yes, again, this is obviously the best example.
Speaker 2: The underlying agenda is to replace checkout staff with self
Speaker 2: service machines to cut costs, but supermarkets have to convince
Speaker 2: their customers. They thus initially present self checkout as a
Speaker 2: convenient alternative. When some people then use that alternative, the
Speaker 2: supermarket can cite that as evidence of a change in
Speaker 2: customer behavior and say, hey, I'm just this is Matt now, Hey,
Speaker 2: that's what they want, right back to the quote, which
Speaker 2: they then used to justify a reduction in checkout in
Speaker 2: play ployees. This in turn makes it more inconvenient to
Speaker 2: use the checkout staff, which in turn makes customers more
Speaker 2: likely to use the machines. Then slowly they'll wean you
Speaker 2: off staff completely and nudge you just gently towards self service.
Speaker 2: And that is certainly a thing that has been happening,
Speaker 2: and we can see it over the course at least
Speaker 2: in the waves that have been coming over the past what.
Speaker 1: Decade, for sure, I mean, And also think about think
Speaker 1: about how irrelevant the data they pull is. If you
Speaker 1: want something to sound like a good decision, sure it's
Speaker 1: a good decision if you say fifty plus percent of
Speaker 1: our customers prefer self checkout, but you can also say
Speaker 1: eight to ten percent of our customers immediately jumped on
Speaker 1: self checkout, which is an indicator of a positive trend,
Speaker 1: because it was zero, So it doesn't matter. The numbers
Speaker 1: don't really matter well.
Speaker 2: And also, I mean just the reality of having let's
Speaker 2: say six self checkout lines or lanes available, whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call them terminals and you've only got two
Speaker 2: people on staff who are actually working in the supermarket
Speaker 2: checking people out.
Speaker 1: Right, Now, that's less you have to pay into insurance.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's all of that, but it's also if
Speaker 2: you're a customer standing there, even if you want to
Speaker 2: go and actually interact with a person and do it
Speaker 2: that way, it's going to move a lot slower. And
Speaker 2: you know it is just by the fact that there
Speaker 2: are only two of those versus six of these, right right,
Speaker 2: So the line is going to move faster with the
Speaker 2: self checkout anyway. It's just there's so much psychology. I
Speaker 2: love that we're talking about this nudge in this way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, to be completely clear, this is just
Speaker 1: one person's opinion, one person's perspective. I'm all about minimizing
Speaker 1: human contact. I have a self jet that's fine, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. That's going into data collection thing
Speaker 1: which I know have hobbyhorsed about earlier. It's like when
Speaker 1: when you call an automated line for utility bill or something,
Speaker 1: and now because they want to gather vocal data on you,
Speaker 1: not because they hate you, but because they want to
Speaker 1: they want to sell that to help increase the sophistication
Speaker 1: of voice recognition technology. I hate that it's too much
Speaker 1: like talking to a person. Let me push one, let
Speaker 1: me push one, then let me push four or nine
Speaker 1: or whatever, and keep it moving.
Speaker 3: I hear you.
Speaker 2: I think just this is the last thing I think. Primarily,
Speaker 2: I'm just speaking to the number of people that are
Speaker 2: being put out of jobs through these something like this,
Speaker 2: and will continue to be put out of jobs and
Speaker 2: may not be able to find a suitable job for
Speaker 2: them anywhere else, because it's the kind of thing where
Speaker 2: you don't need to have a ton of education. There's
Speaker 2: a lot they're like, this is a good job, a supermarket,
Speaker 2: it can be, it can be eat job, and it's
Speaker 2: just one of the things that it's going away, like
Speaker 2: so many other positions on our planet for someone who
Speaker 2: just didn't happen to go and get a degree in
Speaker 2: one field or another.
Speaker 1: And drown and debt. Right, well, here, let's emphasize that too.
Speaker 1: I don't want to lose what you're saying. I think
Speaker 1: it's profound. We are moving, in theory, potentially, if everything
Speaker 1: works out, we're moving toward a post work economy, the
Speaker 1: kind of the post scarcity stuff you hear about in
Speaker 1: fictional universes like Star Trek. However, before we get there,
Speaker 1: even if we do it, really kick ass job of it.
Speaker 1: Before we get to the post work economy, we're going
Speaker 1: to walk through the dark woods of the post worker economy,
Speaker 1: wherein people still have all the same human needs, but
Speaker 1: the system has changed such that the task we have
Speaker 1: to do to satisfy those needs, like having a job
Speaker 1: or participating the coup on system, those options will be gone.
Speaker 1: And this, this is a real This is a real
Speaker 1: and frightening thing. And you just got to watch ads
Speaker 1: all day. You just have to watch ads all day
Speaker 1: like in black mirror, and.
Speaker 2: Your allocated funds have to go, you know, have to
Speaker 2: be spread out a certain amount every quarter.
Speaker 1: And your blinks and attention are accounted. Cover your cameras
Speaker 1: for people.
Speaker 2: Seriously, so so.
Speaker 3: I think I'm the only one at this table here
Speaker 3: that doesn't have their camera cover.
Speaker 1: I cover on my laptop, I cover my I cover
Speaker 1: one of the cameras with a sticker that says yay.
Speaker 1: Because I'm trying to work on being a more positive place.
Speaker 2: This really does say yay.
Speaker 1: It's one day at a time, guys. So let's go
Speaker 1: back to Scott, because Scott also traces this purely decorporate profit.
Speaker 1: He says, quote payments companies such as Visa and MasterCard
Speaker 1: want to increase the volume of digital payment services they sell,
Speaker 1: while banks want to cut cost. So it is a
Speaker 1: win win for those two genre of entity but he
Speaker 1: continues with a little bit of psychology about the nudge,
Speaker 1: and it's this, the nudge is it's a two part
Speaker 1: con Maybe that's unfair for me to call it that.
Speaker 1: It's a two part process. If you want to call
Speaker 1: it a con, be my guest.
Speaker 2: I didn't call it a con that was you mean
Speaker 2: that was that was?
Speaker 1: That was me? And again that's we have to be
Speaker 1: very careful. That's one person's opinion. So first, the idea
Speaker 1: is that we we increase the inconvenience of using cash
Speaker 1: ATMs and physical branches, we increase the barrier cost to it. Right,
Speaker 1: It's harder to find one, maybe the hours are more
Speaker 1: and more limited, and so on, and maybe fewer places
Speaker 1: except cash, like Starbucks is starting to experiment with cashless,
Speaker 1: cashless shops and so on. So the second step is
Speaker 1: it's not enough to make it a pain in the
Speaker 1: ass to do this stuff. To really sell the nudge,
Speaker 1: then we need to aggressively, almost militantly promote our chosen alternative,
Speaker 1: our chosen successor of behavior. We're making people learn that
Speaker 1: they want digital, We're presenting it to them as though
Speaker 1: it is their idea, right, and then they are functioning
Speaker 1: under the illusion that they have chosen it.
Speaker 2: I am so glad I can use this now. And
Speaker 2: I got to be able to use this because the
Speaker 2: alternative was just so terrible. Hm.
Speaker 1: And you know, of course this again, this is not
Speaker 1: inherently insidious. This is a profit motive, right, and for
Speaker 1: many people, at least according to the Banks research, for
Speaker 1: many people, this is the way they want to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty crazy, agreed.
Speaker 1: So let's look at let's look at the possible scenarios.
Speaker 1: Let's get real dystopian. Yeah, favorite thing right, right, right,
Speaker 1: So hold on to your yea stickers or so on.
Speaker 1: So let's say we live in cashless economy. It's it's
Speaker 1: anomally pain with cash in this world is as unusual
Speaker 1: as seeing someone in the grocery store pay with a
Speaker 1: physical check, right, and you're like, oh, this line's gonna
Speaker 1: take forever. Now, look, I got stuff to do. They're
Speaker 1: counting out nickels, what the hell?
Speaker 3: You know? And then we have an escape from La
Speaker 3: scale event that wipes out all electricity, all computer networks, everything,
Speaker 3: it's all gone. What do we do, right? We start
Speaker 3: from scratch. We go back to conk shells and shiny
Speaker 3: rocks the barter system, right, yeah, I mean I don't
Speaker 3: know if that's where you're going, but that's certainly one
Speaker 3: that's like the most dystopian version of this situation, I think.
Speaker 1: And it could happen.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well it happened in Europe for about twelve
Speaker 2: hours okay, back in June twenty eighteen when Visa went down.
Speaker 2: There's this was went down. So that was pretty crazy, right,
Speaker 2: It's kind of like what happened with me that one
Speaker 2: time at the grocery store where just you can't make
Speaker 2: any transactions anymore. Oh god, what do I do?
Speaker 3: Immediately start looting?
Speaker 1: Is what you do?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: No, that's that's the that's the only reasonable thing that
Speaker 3: you could.
Speaker 1: I would I would say first things first, ulu late,
Speaker 1: loudly yeah, and then take a take a knife and
Speaker 1: cut cut, cut your fore arm, not deep, just just
Speaker 1: deep enough to bleed. So they'll be like, well, this
Speaker 1: guy's not playing around. Look what he did to himself.
Speaker 3: Drip it right on the glass scanner thing on the
Speaker 3: self checkout, smear it in the shape of a pentagram. Yes,
Speaker 3: and that'll be your payment, and then loudly insist you
Speaker 3: were paying the blood.
Speaker 2: Price and then write a check.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so it is. It is a thing that's
Speaker 1: happened before. In the case in Europe in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: people had cash, they had euro They could fall back
Speaker 1: on that and say, well, that's a real pisso that
Speaker 1: my car doesn't work. I luckily, I you know, I've
Speaker 1: got ten yuro or something. But that didn't work for
Speaker 1: everybody because when the system was down, the same system
Speaker 1: that they would use to withdraw physical cash was also
Speaker 1: not functioning.
Speaker 3: Right, I'm sorry, I feel like quick backtrack. I feel
Speaker 3: like get buried the lead there a little bit ben ululate, yes,
Speaker 3: hulu late is that like, no, no, no, no, no, exactly
Speaker 3: what it is.
Speaker 1: To get the full image, it's it's ululation. Cut yourself
Speaker 1: a little, just enough to bleed and everybody drip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hold your arm horizontal parallel to the floor, and then
Speaker 1: cut north the south. Don't ever cut east to west.
Speaker 2: So God, it's thank you just for me like cutting,
Speaker 2: cutting the body, the human body, even just talking about
Speaker 2: it in that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not my favorite thing. No, No, that's why
Speaker 3: I'm saying. Guys. Imagine if you're in line at a
Speaker 3: grocery store and you see that happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, it freaked out, right, But this is
Speaker 1: the stope, This is the fall of society.
Speaker 3: This is not Visa going down for twelve hours.
Speaker 2: So okay, let's say that there was a digital only system, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: and the power goes out for an extended period of time,
Speaker 2: like a week, and there is no more cash. There
Speaker 2: is no way for people to trade cash. No one
Speaker 2: has access to cash. We've decided we don't use cash anymore,
Speaker 2: and we've got zero power. What happens right now? Right now,
Speaker 2: you would have your phones perhaps, right or something some
Speaker 2: electronic device that was charged enough during the initial stages.
Speaker 3: Potentially, if you think ahead, you got a couple of
Speaker 3: those power bricks laying around that are charged.
Speaker 2: Maybe, But think about that on a citywide scale. On
Speaker 2: you know, if a whole city's power was out.
Speaker 3: Oh so what becomes currency then power stored energy? I
Speaker 3: don't know, I'm just asking. I guess.
Speaker 2: Just what I'm saying is it becomes a serious issue
Speaker 2: with a cashless society not to have something to fall
Speaker 2: back on in the case of an emergency.
Speaker 1: Right, will we go to a barter system? And it
Speaker 1: would have to be that how long would it. It
Speaker 1: would depend on how long it lasts, right, because the
Speaker 1: initial move would probably be to institute some sort of
Speaker 1: dealing on credit system. But if the records are gone
Speaker 1: then and you know, it gets ugly real quick. Well,
Speaker 1: let's say let's say that doesn't happen. Okay, let's say
Speaker 1: somehow the house of digital cards remains steadfast despite the
Speaker 1: occasional drafts of wind. Then we move into another problem.
Speaker 1: If this stuff works perfectly and nothing goes wrong on
Speaker 1: that front, we run into predictive profiles. So earlier we
Speaker 1: said they're collecting all this information is you move in
Speaker 1: and out of the sandbox. Now this find this is
Speaker 1: just one piece of you, right, where as Whitman said,
Speaker 1: we're vast, we contain multitudes. The financial footprint is just
Speaker 1: a single piece of you. But like your thumb, it's
Speaker 1: linked to the rest of your body overall. So assume
Speaker 1: this financial information gets linked with medical backgrounds, right and
Speaker 1: DNA testing your propensity or certain maybe disorders or certain
Speaker 1: manifestations of physical things. It gets tied to your employment history, right,
Speaker 1: It gets tied to your social affiliations because you're on
Speaker 1: social media. It gets tied maybe to you get flagged
Speaker 1: for controversial purchases like firearms, for instance, or maybe in
Speaker 1: another country where planned parenthood is illegal, you get tagged
Speaker 1: for pain for something that would be a contraceptive or
Speaker 1: you know, terminating a pregnancy.
Speaker 2: And it also gets linked up with your Google travel
Speaker 2: information where you've actually been in real time for the
Speaker 2: past x years that you've had.
Speaker 1: That device, m your GPS, and it does go back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the permanent record is real. And then let's say it
Speaker 1: gets linked to a criminal background if someone has something
Speaker 1: like that. How far away are we from a world
Speaker 1: in which you can legally be detained before you commit
Speaker 1: any sort of crime just because there's a profile set
Speaker 1: against you, and that this profile has reached something in
Speaker 1: its algorithm where it says, for instance, you know, this
Speaker 1: person is now more than fifty percent likely to let's
Speaker 1: say default on a carlo.
Speaker 3: I mean they essentially already do that when making the
Speaker 3: calculus as to whether to give you the loan in
Speaker 3: the first place.
Speaker 1: That's true, Let's link it to something scarer. What if.
Speaker 3: All I'm agreeing with you, I'm missing that same calculus
Speaker 3: could be applied to scarier things, right, right, right.
Speaker 1: So, like let's say let's say instead, your financial information
Speaker 1: is linked with your medical background and you are buying
Speaker 1: We're just making this up. Your your purchases are indicative
Speaker 1: of the development, the nascent development of a medical condition
Speaker 1: that your background says runs in your family. And then
Speaker 1: your insurance gets pre pulled, right because they say, you know,
Speaker 1: the stuff this person is buying is indicative of a
Speaker 1: very expensive thing that we don't want to pay for.
Speaker 3: Right, And the legality of that in our society in America,
Speaker 3: I imagine this is super gray, right, because can't I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, can't your insurance provider deny you for any
Speaker 3: pre existing conditions? I mean, it's all self reporting, I guess,
Speaker 3: but they can find out that you were lying, and
Speaker 3: they could theoretically find out you were lying based on
Speaker 3: set algorithm and say, oh, we were just doing our
Speaker 3: due diligence. We had access to this information. What did
Speaker 3: you expect us to do. We're looking out for our interests.
Speaker 1: Yep. And let's ignore the fact that life is a
Speaker 1: pre existing condition. So I sure, yeah, that's maybe that's
Speaker 1: another episode. But you're absolutely right. The technology and the
Speaker 1: trends are there, even if we're not there yet. As
Speaker 1: a species or as a society. There's one last one,
Speaker 1: which is an oldie but a goodie. It's the gritty
Speaker 1: reboot of using control of a currency as a weapon.
Speaker 3: And this happens all the time.
Speaker 1: We've read Confessions of an Economic Hitman, fantastic book. Now
Speaker 1: it becomes more dystopian in an age of digital currency.
Speaker 1: Now they we're just trading ideas without any physical representation.
Speaker 1: One great example of this, which is still ridiculous to me,
Speaker 1: is remember when the Amazon Kindle came out right and
Speaker 1: people were like, oh, this is so convenient, I don't
Speaker 1: have to haul around tombs anymore.
Speaker 3: And affordable. It was super affordable. That was a big
Speaker 3: part of it.
Speaker 1: They were selling the tech at a loss, right the
Speaker 1: way that Sony sold the PlayStation three and four at
Speaker 1: a loss, because they were making money on the back end.
Speaker 3: I don't know, on the cashless parts, yes, on the
Speaker 3: app the app store or whatever, the transactions and the games.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why I did that weird voice,
Speaker 1: but it's true. So when the Kindle came out, tons
Speaker 1: and tons of people got this, and they got it
Speaker 1: as a gift for their relatives, the readers in their life.
Speaker 1: They got it for themselves, especially people who traveled a lot,
Speaker 1: so on and so on. But then, as reported by
Speaker 1: The New York Times, people found that some books, one
Speaker 1: book in particular, was being remotely wiped from their digital libraries.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter that they paid for it, it didn't
Speaker 1: matter that they possessed it as defined by their agreement
Speaker 1: with Amazon or the publisher. It just disappeared. So imagine,
Speaker 1: now take it one more step, and it's not a
Speaker 1: very large nor very steep step. And let's say we
Speaker 1: are political activists, or we are members of an oppressed community.
Speaker 1: I mean vegans. Vegans got tracked by the FBI for
Speaker 1: their diet and they weren't doing anything disruptive. So perhaps
Speaker 1: this oppressed community we're in, let's say we're like the
Speaker 1: Weiger population in western China, and we're an increasingly open
Speaker 1: conflict with the state level government. If we have physical currency,
Speaker 1: we can make non approved purchases, we can buy maybe
Speaker 1: radio parts to create our own radio station, things like that.
Speaker 1: With digital currency, it is technologically feasible not have a
Speaker 1: case of this happening yet, but it is technologically possible
Speaker 1: for a single entity to instantaneously erase all of the
Speaker 1: currency you possess. You have gone from a million to zero.
Speaker 1: I know that sounds crazy. One last detail there the
Speaker 1: book that was removed from the Kendle. Do you guys
Speaker 1: remember which one it was? It was George Orwell's nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four.
Speaker 3: I think that's a nice.
Speaker 1: Thematic circle.
Speaker 2: What are you saying.
Speaker 3: You're saying they removed it because they didn't want people
Speaker 3: to get wise to their scheme.
Speaker 2: No, it was obviously a licensing issue.
Speaker 3: It was a publisher.
Speaker 2: They only had they use to have it there for
Speaker 2: a certain amount of time, and they ran out of
Speaker 2: that period. Are you kidding? No, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2: That's the only thing I can imagine.
Speaker 1: Think it was a publishing thing they had to I
Speaker 1: don't think there's You do think it's funny.
Speaker 3: I think it's funny.
Speaker 1: I think it's gallous humor. I don't think they were
Speaker 1: scoopy dow enough to be like, oh, these pesky kids
Speaker 1: are gonna find out about the threat of a surveillance state.
Speaker 2: Don't Yeah, Jessop, did you notice that almost all the
Speaker 2: kindle purchases are reading this nineteen eighty four?
Speaker 3: Dreadful? Dreadful? What? What's to be done a bit worried.
Speaker 2: They maybe again thinking about their own situation.
Speaker 1: No, we wouldn't want that, the hoi pollois.
Speaker 3: Best just nip it in the bottom, old bean, go
Speaker 3: ahead and wipe it. Wipe it all, daddy.
Speaker 1: Ho Now back to the meeting and pip. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a reenactment. We were reading quotes. That's
Speaker 1: a conversation.
Speaker 3: That was an Illuminati boardroom conversation at Amazon.
Speaker 1: Weirdly, yeah, at Amazon. It's up to you to figure
Speaker 1: out what Jeff Bezos was doing. He actually he is
Speaker 1: in those meetings, but I think it's mainly to bring
Speaker 1: coffee to those dudes.
Speaker 3: There's an Illuminati lounge at most big corporations. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: we've got one. It's not as nice.
Speaker 1: As I would like.
Speaker 3: It's not here in Atlanta, No, No, it's in New York.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, in New York. But it's like, come on,
Speaker 1: it's New York. You guys can get fresh bagels. You
Speaker 1: run the world.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: They say it's a cost cutting thing for a different day,
Speaker 1: but this is where it leaves us. Right, this story
Speaker 1: is not over, and parts of this story haven't happened yet.
Speaker 1: But it's quite possible they will. The trend toward digital
Speaker 1: currency continues, cash still seems set to move along. Right
Speaker 1: when Kendall's came out, a lot of people were making
Speaker 1: noise about.
Speaker 3: The so called death of the book.
Speaker 1: The book probably won't die because it is cost effective
Speaker 1: and there are just so many of them out there,
Speaker 1: and they are also unlike a Kendal or unlike electron
Speaker 1: methods of reading, they are also very much air gapped,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. That's why burning books is
Speaker 1: still a thing. If you want to destroy the knowledge
Speaker 1: and books, you have to destroy every physical copy of it,
Speaker 1: or you have to destroy the knowledge of the language
Speaker 1: in which the book is written. And between the two,
Speaker 1: the former is much easier to accomplish, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is weird that they don't require any kind
Speaker 2: of battery or Wi Fi connection.
Speaker 1: Right, And you don't have to subscribe, you don't have
Speaker 1: to put your credit card info in I.
Speaker 2: Don't know books, man, that's weird.
Speaker 1: That's so old school, so we know, and maybe that's
Speaker 1: just I don't know, maybe that's a little too alarmist.
Speaker 1: But cash is probably not going to go away for
Speaker 1: some of the same reasons the books haven't gone away. Also,
Speaker 1: the move toward digital currency is supported, make no mistake
Speaker 1: by very very powerful forces both in the private sectors,
Speaker 1: the financial sectors, but also the public sectors too. If
Speaker 1: you want an authoritarian government, removing physical currency is a
Speaker 1: great step forward. There's an inarguable case of tremendous potential
Speaker 1: profit for those entities that side of the argument, and
Speaker 1: the customers, most of the people listening today. You yes,
Speaker 1: you specifically the end user of currency in cash, You
Speaker 1: genuinely have very little say in this matter. No, of course,
Speaker 1: the forces at play on the other side of the conversation,
Speaker 1: they will argue that the move to digital currency is
Speaker 1: a win win for all parties, and those concerns we
Speaker 1: outlined are just that they're sensationalists, they're fear mongering. So
Speaker 1: ask yourself, do you believe their arguments? And if it
Speaker 1: turns out that even one of those disturbing possibilities outlined
Speaker 1: here becomes a reality, how would a society return from
Speaker 1: the precipice? Would there ensure be a way to reverse
Speaker 1: the trend? If it became clear that eighty percent of
Speaker 1: people hated this, and you know the way this game works,
Speaker 1: there's probably a human interest story that shows the dangerous implications.
Speaker 1: Let's say it goes viral and eighty percent over half
Speaker 1: find over half of the people who can protest this
Speaker 1: stuff start protesting it. Will it step back? Is there
Speaker 1: a way? Or is it like Pandora's jar. One thing
Speaker 1: we know that's absolutely certain is this, when it comes
Speaker 1: to a cashless society, there are plenty of things out
Speaker 1: there the banks and your government do not want you
Speaker 1: to know, or at least there is stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to think about too long or too deeply
Speaker 1: until it's too late to turn back. I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a rant. I don't know.
Speaker 3: What do you guys think it could turn back now
Speaker 3: or learn the stuff they don't want.
Speaker 2: You to know now. I think you're right on there, Ben.
Speaker 2: It feels as though it feels as though we have
Speaker 2: to go mostly cashless. But I think the scariest thing
Speaker 2: is that last nudge towards fully cashless, just because of
Speaker 2: those scenarios we built out there. Everything right here towards
Speaker 2: the end of this episode, it does feel like a
Speaker 2: dangerous scenario of digitizing completely.
Speaker 3: That for sure, the big picture dystopian kind of model
Speaker 3: and the fears there. But you know, we have gotten
Speaker 3: to a place where even like you know, a very
Speaker 3: small independent entrepreneur or like someone in a farmer's market say,
Speaker 3: or a crafts fair can take a card when that
Speaker 3: used to be prohibitive. Now you got your squares and
Speaker 3: you just put it on your smartphone. But you're also
Speaker 3: paying for the privilege of getting paid. And that's a
Speaker 3: thing too. It sort of takes advantage of people, you know,
Speaker 3: for participating in this cashless system, whereas if someone gives
Speaker 3: you cash, it's all yours. Or people are leaning now
Speaker 3: more towards Venmo because there's no fees associated with that
Speaker 3: for some reason, which is weird to me because I
Speaker 3: don't understand how they make money. There is a way
Speaker 3: where you can have now there's a new feature on
Speaker 3: Venmo where to do that bank transfer and have Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like a little, you know, negligible portion of the
Speaker 3: total amount. In the same way when you do a
Speaker 3: balanced transfer on a credit card, they make their money
Speaker 3: on charging you a little small percentage of the overall
Speaker 3: amount they get a big.
Speaker 2: So wait, let's say let's say you're using Venmo, how
Speaker 2: long does it take for your drug dealer to get paid.
Speaker 1: I worry about that. You know, drug dealers are some
Speaker 1: you can be. It's it can be a very lonely life,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: I'm just putting this out there.
Speaker 3: You know you get the money instantly, but you you
Speaker 3: you might maybe if you're a drug dealer or any
Speaker 3: other small entrepreneur who's getting paid with Venmo, you don't
Speaker 3: do the bank transfer right away. You do it all
Speaker 3: all at once. Once you've made you know as a
Speaker 3: significant number of transactions, and then you do it all
Speaker 3: at once. You wouldn't get paid twenty bucks for a
Speaker 3: a marijuana cigarette I and then transfer that twenty bucks
Speaker 3: right away. You'd wait until you'd sold, you know, several
Speaker 3: marijuana cigarettes.
Speaker 2: Just putting this out there. I don't have Venmo. I've
Speaker 2: never used Venmo. I probably will never use Venmo.
Speaker 3: I pay my rent with them.
Speaker 1: I feel like you're really me right.
Speaker 3: Now, dude.
Speaker 2: I'm not high roting anybody. I'm just telling you that
Speaker 2: Venmo is a giant informant. Venmo knows that all you're
Speaker 2: doing is buying and selling drugs, and every time you
Speaker 2: use it, you are talking about it to the person
Speaker 2: that you are selling or buying drugs. To I'm talking
Speaker 2: to you out there listening every time you do it.
Speaker 2: I have seen this occur. I looked at it. You
Speaker 2: are literally putting evidence you are drug dealing, so right,
Speaker 2: the internet.
Speaker 3: Evident record of that, there is no He's right.
Speaker 1: It's evidence of living in the moment, man, it's evidence
Speaker 1: of having a good time.
Speaker 3: Yolo.
Speaker 2: I agree, But like it's just so, it feels so
Speaker 2: shortsighted to actually pay for Just be careful, guys, sure,
Speaker 2: just don't buy and sell drugs life.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's short sighted on the dealer side to get
Speaker 3: paid that way. I don't know. I guess it works
Speaker 3: both ways because there's a transaction of both things. There's
Speaker 3: a record of both ends.
Speaker 2: Of the trues. If you are now a known associate
Speaker 2: of that person, I suppose that's true.
Speaker 3: We're all getting Kevin Bacons into prison.
Speaker 1: Man. Ever since the post nine to eleven society and
Speaker 1: the Patriot Act, you know, that's that's the way the
Speaker 1: NSAY and the Alphabet Soup agencies vacuum up potential terrorists.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have to be your friend, doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: your friend's friend. It could be your friend's friend's friend.
Speaker 1: I think it goes to six degrees separation.
Speaker 3: Actually, well, thank god they're more worried about terrorism than small,
Speaker 3: low level drug deals.
Speaker 1: Right now, you don't know that's the thing, you'd ever
Speaker 1: it could switch on you.
Speaker 2: That stuff's gonna be on record until oh, let me
Speaker 2: see apocalypse times.
Speaker 1: So maybe just dummy it up, do some transactions and
Speaker 1: make you look like a great person. Donate some money
Speaker 1: to a cause that those authoritarians would agree with. And
Speaker 1: that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't wait
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 3: That's right, let us know what you think. You can
Speaker 3: reach us to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist
Speaker 3: on Facebook X and YouTube on Instagram and TikTok ork
Speaker 3: Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2: If you want to call us dial one eight three
Speaker 2: three std WYTK. That's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes.
Speaker 2: Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
Speaker 2: we can use your name and message on the air.
Speaker 2: If you got more to say than can fit in
Speaker 2: that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
Speaker 2: fashioned email.
Speaker 1: We are the entities to read every single piece of
Speaker 1: correspondence we receive. Be aware, yet not afraid. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: void writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
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