this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
3175 points (99.3% liked)
Lemmy.World Announcements
28827 readers
3 users here now
This Community is intended for posts about the Lemmy.world server by the admins.
Follow us for server news π
Outages π₯
https://status.lemmy.world
For support with issues at Lemmy.world, go to the Lemmy.world Support community.
Support e-mail
Any support requests are best sent to [email protected] e-mail.
Report contact
- DM https://lemmy.world/u/lwreport
- Email [email protected] (PGP Supported)
Donations π
If you would like to make a donation to support the cost of running this platform, please do so at the following donation URLs.
If you can, please use / switch to Ko-Fi, it has the lowest fees for us
Join the team
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Deleting hospital fees/debt is very dangerous... In many HUGE regions in the US there's only one hospital and if that hospital suddenly can't pay its bills it could shut down, leaving a whole lot of completely innocent people in a very sad, people-are-dying sort of state.
In fact, something like this already happened:
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/st-maragrets-health-central-illinois-hospital-closing/
Hospitals are special in that they're often evil organizations (not all though) that are some of the easiest to hack but also provide critical services to the most vulnerable. One should tread lightly. Political solutions are better (hack some politicians that are against healthcare reform instead).
Clearing credit card debt via hacking is nearly impossible but I agree it would be a much more ethical choice for hackers to target. I used to work for the credit card industry. My unique insider perspective, deep industry knowledge, and personal experience is here to let you know they suck. They are just as evil and unethical and unnecessary as everyone thinks they are! Seriously: If Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and all the lesser players suddenly disappeared the world would be a better place.
Before that can happen though people need a backup payment method that doesn't go through their systems and no: Cash won't work (there's not enough in circulation and it's dangerous to carry large amounts of it). The credit card companies know this threat exists which is why they lobbied Florida (and probably other states) to outlaw alternative, government-run forms of payment (e.g. central bank currency).
As soon as people have a widely accepted payment option that doesn't go through Visa and MasterCard's middlemen (e.g. First Data) then hackers can take their gloves off! Until then though... Let's keep the payment infrastructure working, OK? Thanks!
There's no limit to the amount of good deeds hackers can do though. So let's encourage that! For example, there's plenty of cartels and evil religious organizations (e.g. Taliban, ISIS, Mormon Church, Prosperity Gospel scam artists) that have plenty of money to spare and enormous attack surfaces π
Just want to state the obvious and say, this is pretty much only the case in the US.
I think the alternative payment systems in the developing countries are actually good. UPI in India is very utilitarian. China also has the wechat thing. I guess the issue with these are that they are not universal and limited to a single country.