During covid times I heard many interesting conspiracy predictions such as the value is money will fall to zero, the whole society will collapse, the vaccine will kill 99% of the population etc. None of those things have happened yet, but can you add some other predicitons to the list?

Actually, long before covid hit, there were all sorts of predictions floating around. You know, things like the 2008 recession will cause the whole economy to collapse and then we’ll go straight to Mad Max style post-apocalyptic nightmare or 9/11 was supposed to start WW3. I can’t even remember all the predictions I’ve heard over the years, but I’m sure you can help me out. Oh, just remembered that someone said that paper and metal money will disappear completely by year xyz. At the time that date was like only a few years away, but now it’s more like 10 years ago or something. Still waiting for that one to come true…

  • @Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzOP
    4•9 months ago

    LOL. That was a fun story. Reminds me of that one time a friend of mine claimed with 100% confidence that physical money would be gone within a few years. Then again, he isn’t exactly mentally stable so that could explain a lot.

    • @yiliu@informis.land
      3•9 months ago

      Well, your friend wasn’t totally crazy (nor was mine TBH, the trends looked bad). A few countries have more or less eliminated paper money. India was a very high-profile one, because lots of older people in India had savings stored under the mattress or whatever that were scheduled to become worthless…they had to postpone it a couple times. And a few European countries (I wanna say Finland? maybe Estonia?) have more or less got rid of physical currency.

      A person might see those datapoints and extrapolate from that that it’s only a matter of time before all countries would be paperless, without accounting for differences in culture. I can’t see the US getting rid of paper currency…uhh…anytime soon, let’s say.

      • @Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzOP
        2•9 months ago

        Can confirm that thing about Finland. Physical currency has been eliminated almost entirely. Or well… at least the need for physical currency is pretty much gone at the moment, but some people still use it.

        When it comes to buying and selling stuff between individuals, It’s not uncommon to find a person who won’t accept mobile payments, but wants paper instead. All the stores obviously accept paper and metal, but more and more people pay with a card or a phone. There are some excetional stores that only accept electronic payments, but that’s limited to small companies that can’t be bothered to deal with coins. All the medium and large stores have the means to accept both physical and electronic payments.

        I can’t exactly remember when that prediction was supposed to come true, but I think it was something like 2010 or something like that. Seeing how slowly these things actually change, I would guess it’s going to take like 50 years untill all payments are fully electronic and physical currency is fully eliminated. Could take longer. Who knows.