Carmilla K
Devoted Cultist
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2016
- Messages
- 135
I think that you're trying to get me into a 'catch 22' situation.You're Joseph Heller?
I think that you're trying to get me into a 'catch 22' situation.You're Joseph Heller?
I still use cash and cheques.
Occasionally, I give members of my family money (or they give me money), so cheques and cash come in handy.
I've also had to use cheques to pay tradesmen, such as my plumber and (more recently) the man who replaced my windscreen. None of these guys are set up for electronic transactions or cards.
...What safe guard is cold hard cash under the mattress?
Cash and currency only hold their value if there is a system of ownership and accountancy behind it's transactions. Otherwise it's just paper. If the banks collapse, and the economy goes into melt down, then paper money will be just as useless as a plastic card. Wheelbarrows of the stuff won't help you if there is a financial meltdown...
Electronic money is great until there is a power cut or a system disturbance such as a powerful solar flare from the sun damaging servers and the supply grid. We are informed that a strong enough solar flare or coronal discharge from the sun has the potential to knock out the internet.
Also one has to consider nuclear weapons, Russia and North Korea are just 2 countries that have either threatened neighbours with nuclear attack or tried to justify using nuclear weapons in the battlefield. Again the blast from a nuclear weapon is accompanied by a strong pulse which has the ability to damage the supply network for the internet.
If you money is sitting on a server somewhere and you rely on the internet to move it around then an attack could bring down the system leaving you penniless.
Under such circumstances cash would be useful.
Electronic money is great until there is a power cut or a system disturbance such as a powerful solar flare from the sun damaging servers and the supply grid. We are informed that a strong enough solar flare or coronal discharge from the sun has the potential to knock out the internet.
Also one has to consider nuclear weapons, Russia and North Korea are just 2 countries that have either threatened neighbours with nuclear attack or tried to justify using nuclear weapons in the battlefield. Again the blast from a nuclear weapon is accompanied by a strong pulse which has the ability to damage the supply network for the internet.
If you money is sitting on a server somewhere and you rely on the internet to move it around then an attack could bring down the system leaving you penniless.
Under such circumstances cash would be useful.
Unless everybody instantly withdraws their pay cheques and has no money on the bank, then this sort of event would effect all of us, both directly and indirectly.
However, in the event of a nuclear war or an systems melting solar flare, is your first plan to go shopping anyway? OK, I'm being rather sarcastic there and I'm just playing devils advocate here but again, what good is cash if the system used to quantify it is gone? We may as well use stones. The cash registers in the stores won't be connected to anything (and won't work anywat as the electrical grid will be fried). The banking systems will have collapsed. The cash can't be banked or accounted and taken care of so the actual paper cash money won't be worth anything. Meanwhile outside, looters are going crazy and smashing the place up, stealing everything that isn't nailed down.
The supply chains will not function. All the major financial institutions will have crashed so there will be a 0 value on all currency. Major corporations will have their wealth wiped out. They can't manufacture goods, food, fuel etc as they they can't buy in raw materials or even then, pay their workers. How will they pay the workers to repair the power stations (that are fried anyway)?
The only people to see a "value" in cash after such an event will no doubt try to hoarde it and accumulate it but it will have zero value. When the systems eventually come back on line, we'll have to start again as the idea of accumulated wealth will be gone. And what will you be using your cash to buy then? Because if it all goes to shit in a bucket, my rifle and this big hammer will get me more than your money.
It doesn't have to be TEOTWAWKI, though. The Russians have lived through not one but two massive economic disasters in the past 25 years which wiped out the value of any cash in their hand or savings in their bank account, assuming they could even get to withdraw it. Much of the rest of the world bumbled on without really noticing. Malaysia and elsewhere in SE Asia were hit hard in the 98 crash, and Argentina had a disastrous period relatively recently. Lots of people got burnt, but the world kept on turning. With that in mind, I can see why people would distrust a shift over to a non-cash system, and even why some of the more prepper-minded folks talk so much about precious metals.
My preferred currency for smoothing my escape out of Bartertown will be razor blades. I use them anyway, so no harm in having a few extra put on one side. It's not like they go off.
My own thoughts are that bottles of whisky, brandy, vodka etc. in different sizes would be a very useful stash that could be traded in an economic emergency.If you talking about survival after a catastrophic event, than razor blades isn't too bad. Any toiletries are useful bartering items. "Women's products", toilet paper, etc.
I spoke to a guy from Christchurch, New Zealand that said homebrew was bartered around after their last big quake and people did very well out of it.
It's actually quite useful to look around and see what you have to trade should a big catastrophic event takes place or what skills you have to barter with as well.
Well, tell me how 'easy' it is. I'm willing to learn!Rynner: That's not quite the scenario we are talking about. We are talking about losing your electronic cash, not just losing access to it. Besides, the internet is a lot more vulnerable than it should be. Just think about how easy a government could seize the assets of the opposition in a cashless society.
My own thoughts are that bottles of whisky, brandy, vodka etc. in different sizes would be a very useful stash that could be traded in an economic emergency.
Rynner: That's not quite the scenario we are talking about. We are talking about losing your electronic cash, not just losing access to it. Besides, the internet is a lot more vulnerable than it should be. Just think about how easy a government could seize the assets of the opposition in a cashless society.
I could do this...if I had spare money, that is.The trouble with me is they never last long enough to form a "stash'.
No, a lot of it goes via satellite nowadays. And microwave links too, on shorter distances overland. (Eg, Goonhilly, Cornwall, to London.)I've heard that the internet is very vulnerable too. Just think about how the internet works - it's still just physical cables under the sea. If someone systematically took them out, then we'd be in trouble.
No, a lot of it goes via satellite nowadays. And microwave links too, on shorter distances overland. (Eg, Goonhilly, Cornwall, to London.)
Plus a lot of the newer undersea cables are optical fibres, which can transmit much more information than wires can. And every new cable is a new link in the net, making it easier to switch data to a different route between nodes.
And 'systematically' taking these cables out is not something your average terrorist with a snorkel could do. There are hundreds if not thousands of cables, world wide. You would need a sea-going ship at least.
Undersea cables do sometime break, for various reasons, but modern highly manoeuverable cable layers can quickly find the breaks and repair them.
Years ago I came across a website which would list all the nodes visited between eg, my computer, and the FTMB, say.
It, or a successor, would be an interesting thing to see again. Has anyone else seen such a thing? If so, please post a link!
Fibre optics are still vulnerable to an EMP, because they use electronics, power etc.
It was hardly the internet, then, if cutting one cable could disconnect it!Back in 2011, the country of Armenia lost their internet access when a woman accidentally cut the cable.
Most of the optical networks are arranged in ring topologies with 'clockwise' and 'anticlockwise' routes. If one route is cut traffic can be routed back round the other way, as it were.It was hardly the internet, then, if cutting one cable could disconnect it!
More like an embryo internet!
Give details. Who are 'They'? Which house? How do they do it?Rynner: On a scale from 1 to 10? The Cyprus example mentioned earlier shows it well. They could seize your assets without needing to leave the house.