The demise of cash will enable greater state control over our spending - Yorkshire Post Letters

I enjoyed reading another thoughtful letter from Louis Shawcross in today's Yorkshire Post ("Perils of e-money", December 10). I agree that the demise of cash will enable even greater state control over our spending, but I have long been of the opinion that the climate emergency forces humanity to choose between two evils: earlier extinction as we continue our lives of luxury and freedom, the world's states too weak to keep us from self-destruction; or humankind kept alive for longer, our freedoms sacrificed through totalitarian rule by plutocratic state control in order to stop us from causing more and more rapid global heating.

Let's be clear that without total control over human activity there is no hope of climate change being kept in check and perhaps therefore the draconian measures which Louis dreads are essential - because left to our freedoms and our own devices we will rush ever more rapidly to the extinction of most species, including our own.

What was that saying? ‘Better to die on one's feet than live on one's knees’? Stirring thoughts, but we will be forced onto our knees soon enough - either by the climate or by state control. What a choice.

I would genuinely like to read Louis Shawcross's thoughts on cryptocurrency - electronic currency which (for now) bypasses state control. I am very suspicious of it.