Sometimes I think Scott Adams (yes, the Dilbert guy) is just throwing outrageous stuff out there on his blog, to provoke reactions. I can’t tell if this article, on getting rid of cash and making all financial transactions digital, is one of those though, or if he truly believes that it’s possible.

It would offer a lot of features that are greatly desirable. He lists many of them, including preventing a great deal of crime and gray-area activity. But some of that gray-area activity (and even the crime) is the kind that politicians and big financial players enjoy indulging in, so there’s zero chance that anything requiring their cooperation will ever be passed.

And even if it were, do you think drug dealers and other criminals would just fold up shop? No way. They’d find some other medium of exchange, or go through a broker that would hide the transaction in large volumes of legitimate transactions. Muggers? They’d mug you for valuables to fence or trade, instead of cash. It would just be a minor inconvenience for all of them. And those with the brains for it would just move to online theft anyway, there’s a lot less risk in it and the rewards can be a lot higher.

(This idea has also been explored, in passing, in at least one science fiction novel that I’ve read. I don’t recall which one, but it could have been Neuromancer.)

It’s a nice idea, but it’s not going to happen in our lifetimes.