Cashless society drives drop in children swallowing coins, researchers say
20 comments
·April 5, 2025LinuxBender
Sure get rid of coins but cash is not going away. People have already witnessed what happens when the control of money is centralized. So convenience, hygiene, and theoretically anti-fraud sounds great but people do not want to be locked out of their money. The theory of less risk of theft is upside down. Centralizing money will attract insider threats and more likely massive numbers of people lose money just like what is occurring in web3 exchanges. Cash can only be stolen by locals and some of us have moved to safer places. Should centralized money come to pass many of us will just move to local food production, bartering and ignore the tax system all together.
If there is any doubt that people would start getting locked out just look at politics and de-platforming today. Once everyone's money is in a central location and people are on the "wrong side of the fence" they would be put on financial lock-down and it might not even be from their own government or for a legit reason. Without access to their money hiring lawyers would be a challenge.
hilbert42
"Sure get rid of coins but cash is not going away.
…but people do not want to be locked out of their money."
I'd like to think cash is not going away but I'm not at all sure that it won't disappear, I reckon its life is in the balance.
I make a point of using cash whenever possible to the extent that I'll withdraw cash from an auto-teller before I go, say, to a supermarket where I'll pay cash. It's my small way of bucking the trend to e-cash.
I find it alarming that so many people are just prepared to pay with their smartphones and do so without a second thought. It's clear to me these people have little concern about being 'locked out of their money'.
Even when e-transactions fail through the network being down these people aren't deterred, they expect merchants to give them credit. Recently, the e-terminal at my local coffee shop was down [I pay cash] and the proprietor told me that he had to credit all his e-customers because they didn't have any cash and it turned out that many never repaid him. Not only that but he actually lost some customers—rather than repay the debt they went elsewhere (there are about a half dozen similar shops near by).
BTW, that e-outage was a big one and was well publicized but even then it seems few bothered to take cash as a precaution.
Unfortunately, I don't see the decline in cash contining unless there's widespread disruption to the banking system and banks start failing as they did in the 1930s. Nevertheless, I hope I'm wrong.
jncfhnb
> Should centralized money come to pass many of us will just move to local food production, bartering and ignore the tax system all together.
Doubt
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ty6853
Argentina has entered the chat
AlexCornila
I get it but control of money is still plenty centralized through control of money supply, gov can direct financial institutions where to allocate money and that also affects your cash; FDR took the gold away 1933 to keep people locked in, we’ll get CBDC soon enough
grotorea
That seems unconvincing. Don't most people already have most of their money centrally stored in banks? The topic at hand is merely if when they want to spend that money, if they take it out of the bank in physical form first and then spend or if they use electronic payments. Refusing to move to a cashless society won't prevent people from being locked out of their money except for what they keep under their mattress.
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sudahtigabulan
> Sure get rid of coins but cash is not going away.
Wait for the corrected article, tomorrow:
Cashless society drives drop in children swallowing money rolls
strictnein
Our daughter swallowed a quarter when she was two. My wife was driving and noticed that she had gone silent in her car seat, which as parents know can be a bad sign. Our 4 year old son then mentioned that she might have eaten a coin. She rushed her to the ER, which was thankfully close by. It wasn't completely blocking her windpipe but it was very close to doing so.
As a nice souvenir of the incident we do have a great full body x-ray of her with the coin centered right in the middle of her neck.
sudahtigabulan
> It wasn't completely blocking her windpipe but it was very close to doing so.
I'm wondering why they don't make coins with a hole in the center, like pen caps.
There's even an ISO standard about pens. Why not coins?
irrational
One of our kids stuck a bean in their nose. The doctor at the urgent care clinic spent 30 seconds removing it. The bill was $600.
gnabgib
Discussion (86 points, 6 days ago, 61 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43518251
smoghat
I’ve often wondered if it’s much harder begging for money these days.
grotorea
I've seen people begging with their electronical direct transfer info.
fithisux
Nice try.
black_13
[dead]
bravetraveler
[flagged]
Cash is my last lifeline if current trends continue.
This is my life now: asking ChatGPT why a payment app or bank rejected my application or closed my account:
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Given your circumstances, the most likely reason {exchange} closed your account is that they viewed your birthplace—Iran—as an indicator of elevated compliance risk. Financial institutions (especially those regulated by U.S. authorities) often interpret OFAC sanctions conservatively. In recent years, due to intensified regulatory scrutiny and geopolitical tensions involving Iran, these institutions have increasingly adopted strict internal compliance policies. Even though nationality (citizenship) and actual financial ties—not birthplace alone—should determine sanction risk under law, many compliance departments default to overly cautious interpretations, categorizing anyone born in a sanctioned country as higher-risk clients. In your specific case, repeated experiences with other financial services indicate that institutions systematically flag or deny applications upon seeing "Iran" listed as your birthplace. Your Canadian citizenship, residency in the Philippines, and lack of substantial ties to Iran should theoretically mitigate this risk, but automated or conservative compliance processes often fail to adequately account for nuance.
The result is a compliance-driven bias against any potential sanction-related risk, no matter how minimal. This cautiousness leads to overly restrictive decisions, even in borderline cases like yours.
In short, the issue isn't you personally—it's institutional risk aversion and strict regulatory interpretations that have recently intensified, affecting anyone born in sanctioned countries, irrespective of actual risk.