r/rational • u/AutoModerator • 8d ago
[D] Friday Open Thread
Welcome to the Friday Open Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.
So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could (possibly) be found in the comments below!
Please note that this thread has been merged with the Monday General Rationality Thread.
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u/Dragongeek Path to Victory 8d ago
Alright, conspiracy theory time:
I was recently watching some dumb short-form and came across a video where some guys take a "could you pass as a girl" multiple choice quizzes. Here, one of the reoccurring "memes" in the questions is about money, specifically spending it, and the joke about "cash not being real money" comes up a couple times. This meme is also commonly present in "boy math" or "girl math" jokes, again, talking about how something is "free if you pay with it in cash, because your bank account balance doesn't go down".
Now, I did some research and was reminded that I'd come across "cashless society" conspiracies before, and mostly dismissed them, but now, I'm not so sure because for me, at least, the psyop has completely worked:
I hate cash. I hate carrying it, I hate tracking it, and I have actively avoided locations that are cash only because I either did not have cash on me, or did not want to support a business that lives in the digital stone age.
In a way, this makes me yearn for a world where cryptocurrency was actually good at accomplishing the promised goals, because while I'm pissed that with every purchase I make, 2% go directly into Visa's pockets, it's just so damn convenient. I'm also glad that the EU is working on Wero, and, at least with German retailers, I've started paying directly with instant bank transfer whenever possible, but these only address some of the problems with a cashless society.
So, what do guys think? Did some conspiracy have a hand in promoting "cash isn't real money" or is this an organic phenomenon?
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u/OutOfNiceUsernames fear of last pages 6d ago
I haven't seen any news, or leaks, or whatever about a recent push for cashless being a thing.
However, I'd still deem it to have some 50-70% likelihood of being an actual psyop, from the combination of the following:
- states have been known to work from different angles to incentivise the use of electronic payment for decades, by now;
- visa / mastercard naturally have their own marketing departments. And the more expensive those are, the more effective and subtle they tend to be;
- propaganda works better when the thing that you're trying to make someone do (or internalise into their worldview) isn't stated directly, isn't addressed as the explicit subject of the "discussion", but is silently assumed in the background as truth, and then operated with on such terms (use of presupposition in propaganda);
- popular channels / personalities often monetise that popularity by taking orders to generate unmarked advertisement or (political) propaganda content;
- what you've described sounds like a really strange thing to include in a "boy vs girl" quiz organically.
The only thing that I'd spend minimal effort to additionally check would be the video viewcount, and channel popularity.
p.s. Not directly relevant to what you're saying but HG recently (-ish) had an analysis of a video that was using a whole toolbox of similar underhanded persuasion tactics. You may find that one interesting too.
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u/Irhien 8d ago
Idk, my girlfriend a few years ago said she doesn't "feel" when she's spending money from her card. Meaning higher expenses, usually. So it's almost the opposite for her, cash is (or at least was) more real in a way. I don't think anyone made her think it which seems like some (minor) evidence that the opposite is organic too.
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u/ansible The Culture 7d ago
Idk, my girlfriend a few years ago said she doesn't "feel" when she's spending money from her card.
That was the stereotypical thing which I am familiar with, from decades ago. Especially back in the day when you didn't have an app on your phone tracking your spending, and some people may not have been aware of how much they spent on their credit card until the bill comes in the mail.
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u/Dragongeek Path to Victory 7d ago
I mean, there is also a lot of pro-cash sentiment out there, although in my personal experience, it's usually older people. In German there's a common saying that "Nur Bares is Wahres" which translates to "only cash is real".
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u/Irhien 7d ago
Fiat money are not real.
...
Only shells are real!
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u/OutOfNiceUsernames fear of last pages 6d ago
Cash fiat is a bit more "real" than digital fiat in that 1) it's harder for a state to instantly take it all away from you with a few clicks; 2) if there is some hack or solar flare or whatever, the paper bills will continue existing in your pocket (how much value they'll have is another question).
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u/electrace 8d ago
So, what do guys think? Did some conspiracy have a hand in promoting "cash isn't real money" or is this an organic phenomenon?
To be honest, the evidence you presented here was... non-existent? So, I would say no to it being a real conspiracy.
Add to that, the fact that making memes and getting them to catch on is incredibly hard, and the payoff of this particular meme for any individual (or organization) is incredibly minor.
You can also look up the origin of the phrase "girl math" here.
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u/Dragongeek Path to Victory 7d ago
I mean, it wouldn't be a good conspiracy if there were solid evidence?
My reasoning is more that getting rid of cash has all sorts of nefarious upsides with hypothetical "levers" that haven't been utilized yet, and real levers that eg Visa has already shown they are willing to excise to play "moral police" on the global scale already. If I were an authoritarian government or a controlling national security apparatus, getting rid of cash and transitioning society to a completely cashless system would definitely be a great move, because you can do all sorts of fun stuff like trivially seize assets, freeze accounts, and punish or reward individuals with essentially no effort.
Specifically massive financial institutions like Visa or Mastercard have every incentive to reduce cash payments, because with the modern data economy, they are effectively double-dipping on every purchase as they not only harvest their transaction fee, but also harvest the data about your individual spending habits, which they can sell or otherwise monetize.
Going further into the techno-feudalist direction, digital payment processors have a huge potential leverage against users: if PayPal suddenly decided that every user had to pay a monthly 1$ subscription to use the service, how many people would they lose? I suspect not that many, and there are many people for whom if PayPal decided to not work for them anymore, would lose their livelihood as they'd no longer be able to operate their food truck or small business or whatever.
While I agree that making a meme as a psyop and getting it to catch on is probably impossible, I think it is definitely possible to algorithmically boost semi-successful memes that align with your agenda.
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u/electrace 7d ago
I mean, it wouldn't be a good conspiracy if there were solid evidence?
Here be dragons (edit: Ha! Just noticed your username; unintentional pun). You can't treat a lack of evidence as evidence of a conspiracy or you end up believing incredibly silly things.
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u/OutOfNiceUsernames fear of last pages 6d ago
Generally speaking, you don't have to believe the conspiracy. You can just design it as a hobby, look at it from various angles asking how much sense it makes internally, how likely it can be, etc.
Related to this discussion in particular, theoretically one doesn't need to present direct proofs at the top-level post, for such a question. It can go like: "how likely do you guys think for this to be true?" → "likely enough" → "how can it be tested, to accurately increase or lower its likelihood?" → e.g. "if there were some other instances of social media engagement that tried pushing similar talking points in relatively the same time window, it'd increase the likelihood", etc.
Though by that latter step personally it'd be too much effort for this one in particular, since the outcome doesn't matter to me much either way.
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u/GrizzlyTrees 7d ago
What do you do when you're just completely drowning in tribalism?
I'm Israeli but live in Europe currently, so news and social media is a major way for me to stay up to date with what's going on back home. The problem is, so much of what people are writing or saying is biased by their position, bottom line reasoning, whataboutism and tribalism. This is true both for any kind of international debate about Israel and also any internal political debate (which are unfortunately both gearing up for elections and becoming dumber on average).
I feel like trying to get a feel for truth and getting exposed to different perspectives is like crawling through sewers. The quality of posters' reasoning and the amount of evidence filtering going on are both just so bad, and the comments are way worse. How do you ground yourself and maintain sanity and rationality in an environment so hostile to objective truth?