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Going cashless is a bad idea, but it’s not a conspiracy | Aeon Essays

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Protesters gather in London in July 2023 against digital currencies, among other causes. Photo by Martin Pope/SOPA/Getty by Brett Scott + BIO Protesters gather in London in July 2023 against digital currencies, among other causes. Photo by Martin Pope/SOPA/Getty is a journalist, campaigner, monetary anthropologist and former financial broker. He is the author of Cloudmoney: Why the War on Cash Endangers Our Freedom (2022) and The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance (2013). He writes at Altered States of Monetary Consciousness. Edited bySam Haselby Four centuries ago, a woman named Else Knutsdatter was executed in Vardø, a small coastal town in Norway. She was accused of having used witchcraft to raise an ocean storm that claimed the lives of 40 men. She wasn’t the only one to fall victim to 17th-century folk who – in the absence of other explanations – could be convinced that disasters were conjured by malevolent sorcerers. Ninety others were executed for conspiring to produce the same s

Four centuries ago, a woman named Else Knutsdatter was executed in Vardø, a small coastal town in Norway. She was accused of having used witchcraft to raise an ocean storm that claimed the lives of 40 men. She wasn’t the only one to fall victim to 17th-century folk who – in the absence of other explanations – could be convinced that disasters were conjured by malevolent sorcerers. Ninety others were executed for conspiring to produce the same storm. Today, we know that physics and atmospheric pressures produced those storms. So, in the realm of weather, we’ve moved to systemic thinking,…

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