An easy way to save trees

So i have been buying a lot of stuff for my new house recently and one thing keeps pushing me to my limits. It seems that the most important part of making a big purchase such as furniture or appliances isn't what you would think it is. It's not doing research to pick the right product. It's not analyzing your budget to ensure you have the cash flow flexibility to make the purchase. And it is defiantly not shopping around to find the best deal. It is the little insignificant piece of paper that the cashier gives you at the point of sale.

It seems though Moore has left this one really big loose end behind in the dust. If you go into Best buy and purchase a laptop and are not Amish, two things happen. Best buy's retail enterprise network creates a database entry that logs every single detail about the sale including the name of the clerk who facilitated the sale. Simultaneously Visa (I only say visa because most banks use visa for debt cards) makes a similar entry into their database with info about where, when, and how much the purchase was. Then a stupid thing happens. The cash register prints out a receipt. Now that two servers have records that the sale happened, what is the point of printing out this document other than letting you out of the store without the accusation of theft? Well the answer should be nothing but unfortunately this little piece of low quality paper is the key to returning the item.

It's not enough that there is redundant records of the original sale on two independently owned and operated servers but in our infinite knowledge of computers and networking we still rely on a small strip of paper to link them and thus making purchases reversible. I'm sure this situation will eventually phase out (if it isn't already) but it pains me to know that i still have to keep track of these otherwise worthless pieces of trash.

I can only dream right now of a world where purchase information remains where it belongs, on servers, retail terminal displays, and ideally on cell phone. Yes because in civilized society (AKA some areas of japan believe it or not) the visa card has become obsolete. The point of sale can occur completely between the retail terminal and the customer's cell phone. In this world the cell phone will also be privy to the redundant servers' records of the sale.

The above world isn't actually a dream. It isn't even a wish of mine. It is my actual expectation of Visa and the retail world which is consistently missed. In my opinion retailers should not be able to advertise that they accept visa and others, but instead it should be assumed that every retailer accepts these and those that don't be legally required to advertise the fact that they don't, equally as much as they advertise there products or services in general. In reality it this should not even apply to the card form of visa but the cell phone equivalent that we already lack.

I titled this entry as an easy way to save trees with the obvious idea that we need to stop printing receipts but we could save even more trees if we stop printing money all together. Cash is nothing but a complication when making a purchase. Currency does not have to have a physical form in fact commerce in hindered by the physical form as visa and master card have demonstrated in commercials. Another good example is paying a toll on a bridge or turnpike...

The most inefficient part of driving a car is accelerating from a dead stop. The kind of action paying a toll with cash requires. Just imagine the amount of money spent every year just by the unnecessary gas that is burned to accelerate all the cars out of the cash lanes at tolls. Or the carbon foot print that result from this antiquated archaic form of commerce generates.

The sad part of all of this is the technology to facilitate all of these apparent pipe dreams has been around for decades. We just can't seem to pull our heads out of the sands and stop cutting down trees to bridge these stupid little gaps between servers.