this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
225 points (96.7% liked)
Open Source
31359 readers
220 users here now
All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!
Useful Links
- Open Source Initiative
- Free Software Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Software Freedom Conservancy
- It's FOSS
- Android FOSS Apps Megathread
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to the open source ideology
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Digital IDs are step one to a central bank digital currency which is probably the greatest threat to individual liberty, privacy, and financial autonomy we will face in our lifetimes. Imagine a currency supply the government can manipulate at will, where the government has 100% visibility into every transactions you make big or small, where the government can print and un-print money at will or dictate where and how you spend it. And imagine when the political party you don't like is suddenly in control of this kind of power. Central banks already engage in enough shady behavior and market manipulation and if we give them this power, they will never give it back. This is a dangerous road imo. Plus, a CBDC provided a centralized database of all transactions can be hacked and leaked because that happens to all centralized databases, so now not only does the government know every transaction of yours, so does the world.
If we need the ability to do digital ID verification, there are decentralized opt-in ways to do this which don't pose these same threats of centralized control and provide a safe opt-out/safety valve mechanism if the people administering that system are not trustworthy. CBDCs provide no such alternative.
Absolutely insane that you’re being downvoted. You are 100% correct