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- Is the Future going to be Cashless? 🤑
Is the Future going to be Cashless? 🤑
PLUS: Coral Reef Beauty, The Attention Economy, and The Moral Machine ❓️
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Is the Future going to be Cashless? 🤑
PLUS: Coral Reef Beauty, The Attention Economy, and The Moral Machine ❓️
ECONOMICS
Is the Future going to be Cashless? 🤑
Have you ever walked into a café and been greeted with a sign that says “We are cashless”? For many of us, this is already normal. In fact, cash now makes up just 14% of payments in the UK, and countries like Sweden barely use it at all. So… is cash about to disappear completely?

Can’t use that here, sorry!
💡 Things to consider
Who gets left behind?: Not everyone can go digital. Think of elderly people, those in rural areas with poor internet, or the 1.2 million people in the UK without a bank account. Does going cashless risk excluding them from everyday life? In West Africa, around 80% of people work in the informal economy. A sudden switch to cashless systems could disrupt their income, especially for women, who make up a large share of informal workers in countries like India (59%) and Brazil (20%) according to the OECD. Without careful planning, cashless policies could unintentionally push vulnerable groups into deeper poverty.
Privacy and control: Every card swipe or phone tap leaves a data trail. In countries like India, digital ID systems such as Aadhaar have linked biometric data to bank accounts, making it easier to deliver benefits but also raising questions about how much governments should know about our finances. Governments and companies could, in theory, track every transaction you make. How much are we willing to trade privacy for convenience?
When the lights go out: Card readers, online banking, and payment apps all rely on electricity and internet access. Going fully digital could create new vulnerabilities, like restricted access during power outages or cyberattacks. These potential risks underline the importance of backup options when the system goes down. So while a cashless society sounds smooth and modern, it also raises deeper social, political, and economic questions. Whether the “death of cash” is progress or a problem will depend on how we handle those trade-offs.
Now what?
🔎 Find out more
Book: Cloudmoney by Brett Scott

🍒 The cherry on top
🐠 Coral Reef Beauty: Ever wondered why coral reefs captivate us so deeply? A groundbreaking study has now developed a way to scientifically measure reef beauty, revealing how restoration projects can recreate vibrant reefs that rival natural ecosystems. Dive into how they’re doing it in this fascinating article if you’re into Biology.
📳 The Attention Economy: Today, companies are competing for our attention. In an age of short-form content, powerful algorithms, and endless scrolling, what are the implications of the way we consume social media? An interesting read for those interested in Media and Psychology.
❓ The Moral Machine: The trolley problem: do you actively divert a runaway trolley to kill one person, or do nothing and let it kill five people on the main track? This website is a fantastic resource to begin exploring moral and ethical conundrums and how these relate to real-world situations, such as driverless cars. This is worthwhile for anyone interested in Philosophy.

👀 Keep your eyes peeled for…
Thursday 2nd October
Saturday 4th October
Monday 6th October

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That’s it for this week! We’d like to thank this week’s writer: Thuy Linh (Leo) Nguyen
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