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Sunday, Apr 22, 2018 - 23:23 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

War On Cash Revisited

So, the latest broadside on cash has been fired (see some previous meditations). The NUS campus is (forcibly) going cashless, which has expectedly gained the ire of a good number of its inhabitants - not that it'll matter (as with the PJ Thum saga blowback, which has dealt another blow to claims of academic independence around these parts; well, at least it appears that student activism efforts are increasing)

To soften the blow, a limited-time promotion of 50 cent off every cashless purchase of S$1.50 and above has been instituted, in the best local traditions of "give a chicken leg, take back a whole chicken". This has brought the perhaps unintended consequences of students pooling small purchases (okay, not so bad), to the inconvenience of breaking up larger orders. On that last, it's not even clear whether going cashless has actually improved efficiency - previously, I could just hand a dollar coin to the cashier for my usual drink and scoot off. Now, there's inevitably a crowd of customers milling about the desk waiting for their transactions to go through... but if it's digital, it's smart, I gather.

Some appear to have caught on to the real attraction of cashlessness, which is the ability to monitor citizens' transactions, and transition into a situation where private wealth is entirely at the mercy of the state - at least, for the average poor sod who doesn't have an offshore bank account or two. And, for those sweet summer children who like to think there's a benign motive behind the cashless drive, refer to the recent Facebook data breaches (with Singapore connection!) and response, possibly best summarized by the timeless Zuckerberg quote on those who thought their personal data (also read: cash) safe with Facebook: "People just submitted [to] it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb f**ks."

The whole Facebook Workspace tie-up sure is looking mighty interesting in this context. I daresay another Singapore Military Retirement Team talent with Ranger Spirit should fortunately be able to fix it up, as always.






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