Gregory

RE: https://chaos.social/@grote/116257002625921666

At this point I'm convinced that there's something deeply wrong with how our society treats technology.

Ruining Android for everyone to try to maybe help some rather technologically-hopeless groups of people is the wrong solution. It's unsustainable in the long run. Also, the last thing this world needs right now is even more centralization of power. Especially around yet another US company. (1/2)

Mar 19 at 8:02pmWeb
Show threadGregory3d ago
People who are unwilling to figure out the risks just should not use smartphones and the internet. They should not use internet banking. They should probably not have a bank account at all and just stick to cash. And the society should be able to accommodate such people — which is not that hard, really. Just roll back some of the so-called innovations that happened over the last 15 years. Whether someone uses technology, and how much they do, should be a choice, not a burden. (2/2)
Show threadGregory3d ago
(initially written as an HN comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47444880)
At this point I'm convinced that there's something deeply wrong with how our soc... | Hacker News

Show threadGregory3d ago

TIL that it's illegal to not have a bank account in at least Spain and Denmark 🤯

The Russian law is exactly opposite of this (I just checked to be sure). You are entitled to get paid in cash if you so desire.

Show threadUriel Fanelli3d ago

@grishka

you could live with no bank account, as a native national. But, if you are a stranger here in germany, to do the "anmeldung" (register with the city)  you must have a home address, which requires you to have a bank account to pay bills  with , at least power and water, then on your bank account you get paid by your company,  which actually you need to rent a house, most of rent companies will ask you for work contract to be sure you can pay (evicting is hard ).

So, in practice, living out of cash would prove quite, quite hard.

Show threadсерёжа1d ago

@grishka yes, the EU is pretty crazy in this regard. In my book, refusing to accept cash in an offline store or a cafe should be illegal (cash money is still money), but it's a very common practice here in NL and people seem fine with it (and even make fun of Germans where some places refuse to accept cards).

After moving here I couldn't get my bank account open for a whole month, so I had to only use cash, and it was so infuriating when I just couldn't go to some places because of this.

Show threadGregory1d ago
@broadway_lamb in many countries it *is* illegal to not take cash in retail
Show threadmax oakland1d ago
@grishka @broadway_lamb as it should be
Show threadRiccardo Mori3d ago
@grishka Agreed, 1000%.
Show threadDriftini3d ago
@grishka "oh yeah let's solve technological illiteracy by making it even harder and scarier to do something that might teach the user a thing or two about how their device works"
Show threadGregory3d ago

@driftini the problem is that some people don't want to be taught about some things. They just don't care enough.

No one forced us to learn the things we know about computers. We were eagerly curious to find it all out on our own.

But elderly people are forced to own a smartphone. They never wanted one. They were just fine without one. But then society demanded that they have one, so they bought one, and have to live with that burden.

Show threadMonkeyPanic! 2d ago
@grishka I just hope Linux for phones can (even just partially) replace android at some point.
Show threadGregory2d ago
@MonkeyPanic I'm sure my take is controversial, but — the one thing that Android has done right with Linux was to throw away completely the utter hot mess that is the "standard" Linux userspace.
Show threadmax oakland1d ago

@grishka it’s naive to believe Google’s explanation for the reason they’re doing this. Just like “think of the children” never protects children, “for security” never actually is

They’re both used as excuses to justify consolidation of power and taking power away from us