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| ▲ | gruez 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Alright, so does that mean we don't need KYC for gun purchases or bank accounts either? Of course you're probably going to say something about how guns and bank accounts are crucial components to crime, in which case the same holds for AI in the mexican telecoms hack. | | |
| ▲ | roenxi 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Alright, so does that mean we don't need KYC for ... bank accounts either? That sounds reasonable. A bank can just be an institution that holds money for people; they don't need to be all over their customer's business. It is like a telecom not being responsible for what their customers say. In a simple sense banks don't need KYC. | | |
| ▲ | sandworm101 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | >> A bank can just be an institution that holds money for people Nope. That is a storage locker. A bank uses the money it holds for other purposes such as loans or its own investments, possibly returning interest to the depositor. But, most importantly, a bank disperses money. it therefore needs to know who deposits what so that it doesn't eventually release funds to the wrong person. And then there are the lengthy procedures for handing out money without customer permission. People die. Governments garnish wages. Courts order payments to for child support. If you hold money you have to be prepared for this stuff. So you need to be absolutely confident in the identity of everyone you deal with. Want a simple bank? A bank that doesn't ask for ID? Keep your cash under your mattress. Or put it all in a crypto wallet. | | |
| ▲ | roenxi an hour ago | parent [-] | | I don't think this makes sense. You seem to be saying that a bank has to do all these things to control criminals while simultaneously arguing that there are simple methods criminals could use to bypass the banks (ie, deal in cash and keep it under the mattress or use crypto). Given that the criminals aren't going to be using the banks it would make sense for the banks to not have mandatory administrative overhead that is easy to avoid. > Nope. That is a storage locker. Again, sounds good to me. Let people have a storage locker with a plastic debit card attached. If people had the option of a bank that was a little bit more responsible and didn't roll the dice of total collapse every financial crisis there'd be many that would go for that. Prepper types for example. The discourse glosses over how crazy it is that full-reserve or near-full-reserve banks are soft-banned. |
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| ▲ | BobbyJo 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What happens when everyone needs to use AI for their job? Genuine question that I think gets at the heart of the debate. Once a common technology that everyone has access to becomes powerful enough to alter the lives of others on command, do we as a society just need to do away with the concept of anonymity? We are all just too powerful in isolation, and too much of a threat to the collective, that we cannot reasonably expect not to have some governing body watching at all times? Today, you can buy parts/print a completely untraceable firearm, so do we license sales of steel tubing and 3D printers? | | |
| ▲ | gruez 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | >What happens when everyone needs to use AI for their job? Genuine question that I think gets at the heart of the debate. Considering most places does direct deposit and that requires a bank account (so KYC), I don't see what's particularly new here. Many places also do background and/or work eligibility checks, which again is a form of KYC. >Today, you can buy parts/print a completely untraceable firearm, so do we license sales of steel tubing and 3D printers? Fortunately 3d printed guns are bad enough that it's not really an issue, although the bigger threat is probably CNC machines. However that's probably will get a pass, because they're eye-wateringly expensive compared to black market guns that nobody would bother. | | |
| ▲ | AnthonyMouse 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Considering most places does direct deposit and that requires a bank account (so KYC), I don't see what's particularly new here. Slippery slope is a fallacy, they said. > Many places also do background and/or work eligibility checks, which again is a form of KYC. Except that it isn't KYC at all, both because employees aren't customers (most people are the employees of one company but the customers of hundreds or more), and because the majority of people don't have that requirement imposed on them by the government. There are many jobs you can get without a background check. |
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| ▲ | martin-t 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Just yesterday I thought about the right middle ground for KYC when buying guns. The issue with centrally registering guns is than when you country is taken over by hostile forces (whether an invading army or a democratically elected abuser who turns it into a dictatorship), they know who has the guns and can force those people to surrender them (politely at first, authoritarians always use a salami slicing technique). The issue with no controls is that even anti-social and mentally ill people can get them. I wonder if the right middle ground could be: - Sellers have to do their due diligence - require ID, proof of psychological examination, whatever else is deemed the right balance. - Not doing due diligence means they get punishment equal to that for any offense committed with that gun. - They might be required to mark/stamp the gun so that it can be traced back to them or have witnesses for the transfer. | | |
| ▲ | AnthonyMouse 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The arguments for background checks generally have to be split into two separate classes of people. The first is the mentally ill. Intuitively it seems desirable to say that someone undergoing treatment for e.g. depression shouldn't buy a gun. The problem here is the massive perverse incentive. If you're pretty depressed but you're not inclined to forfeit your ability to buy firearms, you now have a significant incentive to avoid seeking treatment. At which point you can still buy a gun but now your mental illness is going untreated, which is very worse than where we started. The second is career criminals, i.e. people who have already been convicted of a crime and want to commit another one. The problem here is that career criminals... don't follow laws. If they want a gun they steal one or recruit someone without a criminal record into their gang etc., both of which are actually worse than just letting them buy one. On top of that, when people get caught, prosecutors generally try to get them to testify against other criminals in exchange for a deal, who are then going to be pretty mad at them. Which gives them a much higher than average legitimate need to exercise their right to self-defense once they get back out. And then you get three independent bad outcomes: If they can't defend themselves they get killed for snitching, if they acquire a gun anyway so they don't then they could go back to prison even if they were otherwise trying to reform themselves, and if they think about this ahead of time or are advised of it by their lawyers then they'll be less likely to cooperate with prosecutors because the other two scenarios that are both bad for them only happen if they snitch. Meanwhile the proposal was only ever expected to address a minority of the problem to begin with because plenty of the people who do bad things can pass the background check. And if you have a policy that doesn't even solve most of the original problem while creating several new ones, maybe it's just a bad idea? | | |
| ▲ | watwut 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Third, non career violent people. Domestic violence or other interpersonal viole ce should prevent you from having a gun. Regardless of whether you are career criminal |
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| ▲ | watwut 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Personal guns have absolutely nothing with defense against "hostile forces'. That is pure fantasy. Occasionally, gun owners are THE hostile force buying guns explicifely to bully and threaten. But that is about it, really. |
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