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No. There are all kinds of discontinuities in money but this narrative is just an exhibition of ignorance. Even when "money backed by gold" was a slightly less
by jonahbenton 7y ago
No. There are all kinds of discontinuities in money but this narrative is just an exhibition of ignorance.
Even when "money backed by gold" was a slightly less completely inaccurate fiction than it is now, what people "knew" to be money was many, many, many different things, depending on where they were and what they did for work.
Stories like this are like religious narratives, and "money backed by gold" is like the story of the angry god allegedly giving tablets to some dude. It is at BEST an allegory but yall go and read it like it happened.
- OGWhales 7y agoWhat are you talking about? I’d love to see you actually expand on this and explain what you mean instead of just pooping on it and saying people believe in fairy tails.
- jonahbenton 7y agoI'm sorry- I am happy to respond to specific questions from the above but nearly every single sentence is a factual/historical misrepresentation, and the language/terminology ("fiat-based", "backed by gold", "yet everyone legally obliged to accept it") is that of someone who has a particular religious view of money (maybe a "goldbug") that may have its own philosophical consistency but...is...just...completely...ahistorical. Money is a much more interesting topic that goldbugs give it...um...credit for. There is another recent discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22573204 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22573204 that has a lot of pointers to good resources from which to begin the discovery process.