2017: On the Poverty of Cash
We speak of poverty as though it is only measured in dollars, but the most pressing deficit of our time is attention. It shows in the way businesses treat privacy as disposable, staff as untrainable, and customers as fungible.
Privacy is not a luxury. It is not an indulgence for paranoiacs or recluses. It is the condition of safety in a world where every transaction, every search, every passing enquiry is stored, shared, or stolen. And yet the systems we rely on are administered by the poorly trained, the underpaid, the inattentive. They repeat what their screen tells them and wave away concerns with a “don’t worry.”
A universal identity card is often presented as the solution: a single, authoritative proof that might prevent fraud and stop businesses from hoarding endless fragments of our lives. I resist it with every fibre. Yet I also see the temptation. For when privacy is treated so lightly, when companies declare “we make every effort” while investing nothing in security, perhaps only a blunt state-issued instrument could stand between us and complete exposure.
But even that would fail if the culture of inattention remains. For what use is a secure card when the person handling it cannot imagine why your safety matters?
I see this in miniature all the time. Friends who shrug off their own privacy extend that carelessness outward, exposing others without a thought. One neighbour, amused at my request for safety, took my photo without consent and uploaded it. To her it was harmless fun. To me it was a violation. To her it was a laugh. To me it was risk.
This is the poverty of attention. A refusal to see beyond one’s own horizon. A culture that confuses convenience with care, and assumes that anyone who demands better is difficult, hysterical, or mad.
We do not need universal IDs. We need universal attention.
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