From Kyiv, in Kyiv.
In the authoritarian playbook, one of the most important things is to continuously demonstrate to masses that they’re incapable of handling their own matters.
In case of petitions websites, I think they’re meant as an outlet for people to channel energy into so that they don’t have any left to organize politically for real change. People do intuitively understand this and largely stay away, leaving a few loons with time on their hands to repeatedly fill the platforms with garbage.
There doesn’t have to be a sinister plot for the result - mandatory, ubiquitous tracking and bank commisions in the middle - to be real and problematic, is what I’m saying. The governments have all the resources they need to make it possible to pay with cash anywhere you go, but the trajectory they choose is the opposite. Regarding the costs, I think IT and integration work required for cashless payments are an order of magnitude costlier than cash and coin slots, because of the telecom equipment, data centers and IT professionals working on it.
Before city bus cards, there was cash. Then cashless was made mandatory, but possible to prepay with cash anonymously. Then the anonymity was forbidden.
Cash is under attack even in public transit, you are required to provide a working phone number and government name to put money on a city bus card. Here at least. It’s being made inconvenient on purpose.
And the lawyer too? These types of transactions involve contracts and intermediaries.
How would the muggers even know you have the money?
Depends on where you buy a house. There are many rural houses and small apartments in tower blocks. And why a suitcase? You probably have a few dozen low-value banknotes lying around at home, stack them together and see they don’t take up much space (high-value banknotes aren’t thicker).
People who have lived through numerous economic crashes and bank closings. In Eastern Europe, cash in EUR and USD has good reputation, despite efforts by governments to bully people out of paying with cash altogether.
The exact chosen letters in the article are likely from the name of the organization mentioned, International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, which started as ILGA and added letters later.
Unsurprisingly, only the countries that export very little meat and dairy have a smaller problem, that nonetheless remains significant. There’s no “overuse” as in the title, because for the machine that enslaves and slaughters billions of animals every year antibiotics are an absolute requirement. This industry needs to be abolished.
If you live far from the workplace, you probably can’t afford to relocate closer.