Re: [Taler] Money with capabilities

[Özgür Kesim]

[This is a bit late of a reply, but... reasons.]

Hi Talerians,

from the arguments presented from Sebastian, Jacob, Belen and me so
far I would conclude that the universal purchasing power of money is
a property that should be not tampered with.

We presented various kinds of reasons for why money with limited
purchasing power is problematic - here is my honest attempt of a short
summary:

 - economical reasons
   (rising food prices; economic isolation and exclusion)

 - political reasons
   (LPP as an agent for oppression; social justice should be fought
    politically; difficulty of aligning people's needs with money's
    capabilities)

 - social reasons
   (equalizing effects of UPP money; LPP introducing additional
    dependencies and power dynamics)

 - health/psychological reasons
   (LPP would not heal addiction; missing friction and bad design of
    digital payment systems is the problem, not UPP)

 - anti-technocratic reasons
   (things that are technologically possible might not be necessary or
    even harmful)

and there are probably more reasons in favour of UPP money.

Especially the suggestions and recommendations from Belen for
_voluntary_ limitation and self-regulation, supported by well designed
(in function) wallet apps (rather than money), seem to me a good
starting point for further investigations and research in this area.

However, I think there is still a case to be made for LPP, but
strictly in the context of age restriction:

# Why age is different

Age and age verfication is not only a matter between parents and
children, because also _merchants_ are legally obliged to require age
verification for certain goods and services.

The current implementations of age restriction all (ultimately)
require an ID-based proof of age, of the parents and/or the minor.
While there are proposals for privacy-friendly identity management
systems, they would still involve a legal authority for approval of
the ID attributes.

This is why I think that an extentions of GNU Taler providing
_anonymous age restriction_ based on the _subsidiarity principle_
(parents/legal guards as the approving authority, not other legal
institutions) would help insofar as _merchants_ would not have to
check, verify or store any privacy related material and the decisions
are made by the parents/wardens (and still allowing for involvement of
the minors).

Such an age-specific extension of GNU Taler can be designed and
implemented in a way that it would be very difficult to be used for
anything else but age verification.

To summarize, the proposed anonymous age restriction extension to GNU
Taler would

- not introduce a restriction that doesn't exist yet,

- guarantee anonymity and reduce the amount of collected data for age
  restriction to a minimum,

- reduce the complexity and risks involved with existing mechanisms
  for age verification,

- simplify the process of age verification for merchants and minors
  and

- shift the reponsibility and control over age restriction to where it
  (legally) belongs.


Cheers,
Özgür