Thankfully not. But imagine if power was out for several days or weeks, which will happen in the future as natural disasters get worse.

Did this question have a point? It did not.

To draw attention to the motte and Bailey nature of this argument.

The Bailey: ‘cashless payment is fragile and a single outage would lead to riots in the streets’

The Motte: ‘internet and power outages happen and are annoying’

Evidence for the easily defended motte position does not defend the outrageous Bailey.

As suspected, no point. (nothing was validated or invalidated)

An instance of one outage not causing a food riot is pretty clear evidence against the proposition that digital payment systems are one outage away from food riots.

No, but there was a reasonably priced French red wine riot.