Ah.... stupidly long car trips means that my mind wanders off at points and starts thinking about other things. Probably should keep an eye on the road still, but it does mean that an occasional thought pops up into my head.
Anyway, this one random thought is about the nature of money... as I've been listening to more and more podcasts and news about the potential end of the US dollar dominance as the world's reserve currency. It has been roughly 50 years or so since the dollar took on the role as world reserve, with the benefits and downsides that has for the US economy. That in itself is a pretty huge achievement, as many former world currencies don't tend to last so long!
Anyway, it does bring to mind as to WHAT might replace the US dollar as a world reserve... would we switch to a new fiat reserve like the Chinese Yuan, back to some hard commodity, or some truly digital version (hmmmm, likely given this audience... likely that there will be wave of support for this option!). We have lived for so long in this fiat US dollar world that there are many people who don't question exactly what the concept means anymore... it is unthinkable that we could possibly transition to another system. And that could leave many exposed and unprepared.
But all of that is sort of besides the point... the thought was more about what actually gives the concept of money any meaning. Is it really a "thing"?
The idea of money to me strikes me as an emergent concept... in that, it isn't really a "real or fundamental thing". Hear me out... it is a random road driving thought.
So, a slight detour to my former studies... Space and Time, in the Classical sense were long thought to be fundamental properties of the Universe/Reality. They existed, and formed the arena in which you put things in.... however, there are multiple problems with that, and the old theorists of the Enlightenment like Newton essentially said (paraphrasing...) that there is Space and Time laid down by the almighty Lord, and we will never talk about that ever again.
However, the common understanding now is that these two things are actually not fundamental things, but are emergent from having "stuff" in the Universe. Essentially they are meaningless concepts without "things" and "change".
So, back to "money"... it isn't really a thing that is required if everyone has access to everything that they need. In fact, it doesn't exist if there is no people or no society, However, it starts to become necessary when there is a need for "trust" between people, and it emerges when social consensus settles on a manifestation of that "trust"... be it gold, fiat, or whatever.
However, it is only a construct that requires social consensus... and as we have seen in the past, that consensus isn't a guaranteed thing... people and powers are fickle, and things change. Indeed, it is likely that in the future that gold and silver no longer hold their status as "hard" currency! If asteroids can be mined, then there will be a surplus of these precious metals which would devalue them considerably... unless they were artificially restricted, but that will not be a great solution.
...so, perhaps the it is the time of the digital manifestations of trust to start taking shape? Soon?
I can also be found cross-posting at:
Hive
Steem
Publish0x
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