anarchop

By downvoting their comments obviously. That will surely convince them.

Of course one would hope this platform single handedly leads to major advancements on industrialisation, permanently eradicating child labour and slavery in all industries. One would also hope that simply not buying chocolate sourced from farms that employ child labourers that should be in school (as opposed to older children that don’t need to be at school, which according to the data I can find actually represents the vast majority of child labourers in the cocoa industry) would also solve the issue. My fear is however that it’s not that simple, and we could even make things worse. For example, child labour numbers have increased in recent years, haven’t been able to find percentages over time so cannot comment on that. One could hardly say that “ethical sourcing” and marketing has proven that it’s reduced child labour given this increase.

Simple: friction cost. Going through a sign up and payments process is simply too much of an investment of time for the value equivalent to a 1c payment. It’s like asking: “why don’t people drive to stores to buy 1c single pack toothpicks instead of picking the food stuck in their teeth out with their fingernails, even though it’s unsanitary etc?”. The answer is friction cost: the time, effort and cost is simply not worth it for one toothpick, so people typically buy at on average $100 when they shop for groceries etc. Another example is quantity preference: why don’t gyms offer weight lifting charged at 10c per kilogram lifted or 1c per 10m run on a treadmill? Because most people prefer to consume in large and varied quantities and don’t want to have to restrict or plan consumption in such low quantities. Same goes for music streaming or video streaming services: most people would prefer to consume as much as they like with a fixed regular committed cost, though pay per movie / view do exist they are not considered micro payments and can be relatively expensive.

Diesel particulate pollution is the primary problem. London black cabs are diesel. There is a good case for banning diesel in metro and even suburban areas over time and requiring at least hybrid. Electric busses actually make more sense than cars due to the high regeneration of stopping.

Most people are scared of losing their jobs for saying / thinking / doing / being accused of doing the wrong thing by the vocal minority of social justice warriors. This is totally obvious if you’re not part part of the minority, but a bitter pill for the woke crowd to swallow.

Payments are not the problem of concern for central bankers: negative interest rates are. Legacy physical cash based fractional reserved banking is inherently not able to support aggressive negative interest rates as depositors can simply withdraw cash to avoid it. Digital currency can self amortise as it never leaves the ledger, allowing effective negative interest rates to turn the momentary policy crazy dial way past 11. Keynes would love the idea.

Until recently blacklivesmatter.com about section touted that the movement “(we) are trained marxists”. Sorry but you’re not racist if you not a marxist. This is straight up Bolshevist tactics. More companies should take an assertive stance against these regressive tactics.

You are obviously completely wrong. But on the other hand...

Is it a surveillance tool for cash payments? Yes:

“ Xu Yuan, associate professor at Peking University’s national development research institute, told broadcaster CCTV that because cash transactions were offline and transaction data from existing payment platforms was scattered, the central bank was unable to monitor cash flow in real time.

“Although there is little change from the perspective of user use, from the perspective of central bank supervision, future forms of finance, payment, business and social governance etc, this is the biggest thing ever.”

I think this describes developing economies generally. Basic housing and food is what people need work for.