In Ontario, the traditional Amish largely opt out of social programs and public education that they're eligible for; they manage as they can within their communities privately, perhaps hiring outside services as necessary. Some make use of provincial health services; you can get the documentation and ID for that with some paperwork (which they probably have - income tax statements and birth certificates, etc.) in person at government offices. Otherwise the only mandatory interaction with the state is basically birth registrations and paying income taxes. Both of those can still be done with paper forms by mail or in-person, at least for now.

> Banking is private-sector, but I believe the government should always be accessible even if you live like the Amish

I got a notice from my state that I'm required to make future tax payments electronically. For that they require ACH. Banking may be private sector but participating in it is increasingly non-optional.

The trouble with the idea of banks being accessible, is that you also need to deal with KYC checks. Not all financial things require them, but it's creeping. I wonder how many homeless people have no ID.

Losing ID is really common on the street.

Historically, you were known by people around you and you could be "verified by relative" in the case of a house fire destroying all your documents or something, but your life mostly worked in your home town and traveling or moving elsewhere was hard. Trying to cash a check anywhere but your home town was hard, etc.

I'm a former military wife and this was a big enough issue for the American military that military facilities would cash your check at the BX/PX. Local banks and such often wanted nothing to do with military members.

And now we have this highly digital, highly mobile society and if you are rich enough and such and keep all your ducks in a row all the time, you have tremendous freedom to roam the world, pay with plastic, etc. But for a lot of people, it's increasingly problematic that we default to state ID and digital formats and so forth.

These systems should enhance older methods of making life work, not crowd them out and make life a living hell for anyone who can't keep up with it. And we should be optimizing for helping ordinary people make their lives work, not optimizing for trying to squelch bad actors and too bad, so sad if innocent bystanders get run over in the process.

I don't know how to make my life work. It seems impossible at this point and it really shouldn't be. We have the means to make life for me actually work and no matter how much I do, it's never enough.