• snooggums@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    It is the same thing that happened with US Social Security Numbers, which were originally just tracking numbers for that one purpose that were coopted by capitalists and treated like something special.

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      7 hours ago

      I remember I was flipping through some of my mom’s old college stuff and there was a club that she was involved with and everyone listed their address and social security numbers. It was wild, no idea why they felt the need to collect socials. But this was a very long time ago.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      It’s not just “capitalists” (whatever that means), every government agency seems to want it, employers and banks are required to ask for it, etc. It’s more than just “some people misused it,” we actually wrote it into regulations.