Doctor, dentist, employers, educational institutions. [edit] all financial institutions, lenders, et c

Unless you’re buying everything with cash, your purchasing history will be connected to it, too. Where you drive (license plate scanning and data-sharing is widespread). Facial recognition in stores means paying cash might not even help (seen the ones that highlight your face on a monitor when you walk in the store?)

But we have to pretend we don’t have a national ID system any time it might be convenient to a person to have that.

Right. I thought the parent post was talking about being challenged by government officials/police ("papers, please") on a regular basis - and not about private-sector use. A misunderstanding on my part.

I literally had to present ID this morning to buy cold medicine. Had to present ID lastweek to enter my kid's school then had to present ID to their pediatrician.

At least two of those instances make perfect sense. Meth's a thing and we don't like unidentified individuals fucking around on school grounds these days.

It's sad how in the state of Washington I have become accustomed to drawing my ID out on every transaction that involves confirming that I'm over 21 whereas cross the border into Idaho there's not a single time I have ever been asked to provide my ID in over 10 years. Clearly in Idaho they can take one look at me and go like well yeah clearly but such visual social technology is beyond the pale in the great creepy state of Washington. I'm a bit sad to think of what the children of today's children will be like when I am very old and they are very young. Maybe one day nobody will know what it was like to live in a society that was able to just tell things by looking at it.