Some fellow at the Safeway tonight, asked me for some spare change. I was going to give him a buck, but I had no smaller bills... and then I thought what's he going to do in a cashless society?
If you think about the role of "begging" ... traditionally and historically... and then certainly as a foundational premise of religious and moral practice... via service, karmic yoga, humility and generosity, such a change essentially surgically removes that aspect of daily life from our view ... without so much as a whimper.
This is NO small thing; NO small change... The personal relationship between ourselves and the poor (or just our serendipitous relationship between people we meet on the street) is NOT something that can be "quantified" and commodified.
We really have NO idea how deeply our lives will be altered by all this digital economy bullshit. Uber & Lyft have already removed many people from the burden of public transportation, but ALSO from the unexpected gifts of life in public and to all that attends to living at least some part of our existence in the public commons.
I wonder when the last time was that Klaus Schwab gave a few francs to a homeless person?