Life in a cashless society will be no life at all

Imagine a time when cash is obsolete and we have only the option of using e-money (“Bitcoin millionaire buries $2m in hidden treasures across US with cryptic clues”, Tuesday 26 November).

We will only be able to purchase goods and services in certain places, at certain times, and in certain quantities.

What if the government decides that each person is only allowed to purchase a certain amount of meat per week to offset climate change – or that each person is only allowed to purchase things within a certain designated area up to a certain distance from a person’s place of abode, to comply with a “15-minute city” urban planning concept?

Or that income has to be spent within a certain time period or else that money becomes obsolete?

This situation would vastly take away freedoms we’ve come to cherish – so where is the opposition to this authoritarianism? The answer is to insist on paying with cash wherever possible.

Louis Shawcross

Royal Hillsborough, County Down

A question of choice

The debate on assisted dying – more precisely, the arguments against it – has stirred up memories and anger for me ("Five arguments for and against legalising assisted dying", Friday 29 November).

While she was dying in hospital, my aunt suffered a broken hip through rough handling. My dad was left to die on a ward with only my mum, me and my son to help him through his last hours. My mum died after waiting hours for an ambulance, on a trolley in a corridor outside A&E.

So don’t tell me the plans for assisted dying will put people in danger. That already happens. This bill is about giving people the right to choose when, how and where they die – if they want to exercise that choice.

Julia Hatch

Puglia, Italy

Who benefits from assisted dying?

The assisted dying debate has been a national disgrace (“Tanni Grey-Thompson: Before voting on assisted dying, I urge MPs to read this...”, Friday 29 November). It sprang from nowhere because Keir Starmer made a private promise to Esther Rantzen earlier this year that if he became PM, he would make time for a debate in parliament.

Assisted dying is more about assisting the living than the dying. You were not given a choice to be born, so why should you be given the choice to die?

Jamal Khan

Address supplied

Always a cross word...

Today’s Concise Crossword was excellent. Took me ages but all the clues were reasonable, just with unusual words. Nothing obscure – but it did need a bit more searching of the outer reaches of the mind.

More like this, please!

Mark Ogilvie

Horncastle, Lincolnshire