as a non-American reading this, only reaction can be... "WTF?!"
can you elaborate on that?
centralized systems for identity are used all over the f world, and de-facto you have them in the US too (hello credit cards, hello driver licenses, hello... SIM card?)... they can be used as _tools_ by regimes with fascist tendencies, but their existence alone is quite neutral
ALL countries with functional governments NEED centralized identity systems to function (hello... IRS?), and they all get them even if you like to pretend they don't exist.
...why not just accept they are there, and focus on properly securing them from attacks, making them unalterable by corrupt officials (from simple checksumming and write-only permanent archives to full-on blockchain solutions), and preventing unrestricted access to them, all technically doable.
If you PRETEND you don't have a centralized identity system, don't you just leave all these problems unfixed and just go on with a broken system forever?
a centralized system is by definition not present locally, so it cannot verify the person itself, hence it cannot be used for identity verification.
You need a local actor for all the things you mention.
Credit card? there's a bit that designate that the card was physically present on the transaction place. And nothing that identify the person (even the signature on the back is joke)
Drivers license? you pay the salary of hundreds of thousands of cops.
IRS? you actually proved my point even further: remember california urging everyone to claim they account/password asap because criminals were rushing and filling fake returns to collect checks instead? clear sign of a system that have no clue how to verify identity.
So, Who is pretending? Stop daydreaming that the technofascist lie of everyone being a verifiable number is real.
can you elaborate on that?
centralized systems for identity are used all over the f world, and de-facto you have them in the US too (hello credit cards, hello driver licenses, hello... SIM card?)... they can be used as _tools_ by regimes with fascist tendencies, but their existence alone is quite neutral
ALL countries with functional governments NEED centralized identity systems to function (hello... IRS?), and they all get them even if you like to pretend they don't exist.
...why not just accept they are there, and focus on properly securing them from attacks, making them unalterable by corrupt officials (from simple checksumming and write-only permanent archives to full-on blockchain solutions), and preventing unrestricted access to them, all technically doable.
If you PRETEND you don't have a centralized identity system, don't you just leave all these problems unfixed and just go on with a broken system forever?