5 ms·

Most people misunderstand the accounting part of why salt was important, everyone knows what salt looks like and how much it's worth. It's a value comparator =

by bullen 5y ago

Most people misunderstand the accounting part of why salt was important, everyone knows what salt looks like and how much it's worth. It's a value comparator = it's used to compare other products (for example if a sheep is worth say 750 grams and a cow is worth 850g then you can exchange sheep and cows with some salt to cover the difference) this is the most valuable characteristic of money, something universal to build trade from. Seashells also work well in some places, not as a store of value but as trade enablers. I'm guessing no exchange was ever made in the history of man without this kind of value comparative, long before the term money was even discovered.

elliekelly 5y ago
Interesting. Along the same lines I would imagine it was one of the easiest “currencies” to confirm the authenticity of... a quick lick and you’ll know whether or not you’re being ripped off with a counterfeit.
- obiwan14 5y ago
  One, then, has to wonder what the consensus algorithm was to determine the truthfulness of the taste (lick) test. Did they manage to put it on a blockchain?
- inawarminister 5y ago
  Same with gold, you could munch on a gold piece to test it's authenticity.
Hermitian909 5y ago
> I'm guessing no exchange was ever made in the history of man without this kind of value comparative, long before the term money was even discovered. I used to think this as well but it's apparently not true! In hunter gatherer tribes (and probably early agricultural groups) it sufficed for two parties to agree that one was getting the better deal and agree there was a debt. Then in a later transaction the debt would likely go the other direction, as the party in debt for the first transaction overpaid. This cycle seems to have repeated indefinitely if everyone stayed on reasonably good terms. Importantly, the stability of communities was the bedrock of these types interactions. Once communities got extremely large (1000s) or travelers became common place, the kind of comparative you're discussing seems to have become more important. I'd recommend reading "Debt, the First 5000 Years" to learn more
- bullen 5y ago
  I'd like to think that too, but realistically everyone has always known that debt was stupid, you never know when/how you'll get shafted, just like lying. Agreed, back then that was true all of the time, but all the better reason to not venture into that sort of crackpot system, specially when you have salt/shells just laying around... In nature there is no such thing as borrowing from the future (natures favourite debt is borrowing from the past = chop wood 2 years before you're supposed to burn it to give it time to dry, plant months before you harvest, share discoveries without copyright/patent, that sorta thing), it's a purely human/predatory thing to think you can fool others into debt; sacrificing their own offspring like that: because either way you turn it you're probably not going to want to be around when it's time to pay the "real" price of debt = voluntary slavery, then energy collapse followed by a shitstorm of domino-effects! History rhymes they say. I think all economic "professors", writing books about a past they have no clue about, probably suffer from this good old quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair Eventually you'll see how biased/"sunk cost" David Graeber was to think that "stone-agers had debt too" like they would care... it was probably salt/shells as lubrication or smack them over the head before the deal was over. The more I think about it the more I'm convinced debt only came with generalized written/read language and all the book-keeping crap the Italians discovered in the 14th century, about the same time the first Chineese dude forbid silver with punishement of death and started printing paper bills... So yes, there was debt but not the kind of orderly debt you and I are thinking about, but rather the debt of people exploiting others for decades and almost getting away with it; "debt", those stories never seem to get fairy-tale endings though. So what is really different this time? Nothing! Trust me if it's one story that has been on repeat for the last 20-30 centuries it's monetary inflation, and energy inflation never seems to agree with that; because you can't print energy: all revolutions are monetary, but before that they are increase in entropy! Seen that we're on the peak of the largest possible energy bubble, by time of storage (millions of years of sunlight creating coal, oil and gas), powering the largest fictionary money/debt bubble any monkey could be fooled into believing, I would say it's time to talk to David Graeber about what really happened in the past! The real connection is violence! Debt is voilence postponed; salt means peace, atleast for now!

by bullen 5y ago

elliekelly 5y ago

Interesting. Along the same lines I would imagine it was one of the easiest “currencies” to confirm the authenticity of... a quick lick and you’ll know whether or not you’re being ripped off with a counterfeit.

obiwan14 5y ago
One, then, has to wonder what the consensus algorithm was to determine the truthfulness of the taste (lick) test. Did they manage to put it on a blockchain?
inawarminister 5y ago
Same with gold, you could munch on a gold piece to test it's authenticity.

Hermitian909 5y ago

> I'm guessing no exchange was ever made in the history of man without this kind of value comparative, long before the term money was even discovered. I used to think this as well but it's apparently not true! In hunter gatherer tribes (and probably early agricultural groups) it sufficed for two parties to agree that one was getting the better deal and agree there was a debt. Then in a later transaction the debt would likely go the other direction, as the party in debt for the first transaction overpaid. This cycle seems to have repeated indefinitely if everyone stayed on reasonably good terms. Importantly, the stability of communities was the bedrock of these types interactions. Once communities got extremely large (1000s) or travelers became common place, the kind of comparative you're discussing seems to have become more important. I'd recommend reading "Debt, the First 5000 Years" to learn more

bullen 5y ago
I'd like to think that too, but realistically everyone has always known that debt was stupid, you never know when/how you'll get shafted, just like lying. Agreed, back then that was true all of the time, but all the better reason to not venture into that sort of crackpot system, specially when you have salt/shells just laying around... In nature there is no such thing as borrowing from the future (natures favourite debt is borrowing from the past = chop wood 2 years before you're supposed to burn it to give it time to dry, plant months before you harvest, share discoveries without copyright/patent, that sorta thing), it's a purely human/predatory thing to think you can fool others into debt; sacrificing their own offspring like that: because either way you turn it you're probably not going to want to be around when it's time to pay the "real" price of debt = voluntary slavery, then energy collapse followed by a shitstorm of domino-effects! History rhymes they say. I think all economic "professors", writing books about a past they have no clue about, probably suffer from this good old quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair Eventually you'll see how biased/"sunk cost" David Graeber was to think that "stone-agers had debt too" like they would care... it was probably salt/shells as lubrication or smack them over the head before the deal was over. The more I think about it the more I'm convinced debt only came with generalized written/read language and all the book-keeping crap the Italians discovered in the 14th century, about the same time the first Chineese dude forbid silver with punishement of death and started printing paper bills... So yes, there was debt but not the kind of orderly debt you and I are thinking about, but rather the debt of people exploiting others for decades and almost getting away with it; "debt", those stories never seem to get fairy-tale endings though. So what is really different this time? Nothing! Trust me if it's one story that has been on repeat for the last 20-30 centuries it's monetary inflation, and energy inflation never seems to agree with that; because you can't print energy: all revolutions are monetary, but before that they are increase in entropy! Seen that we're on the peak of the largest possible energy bubble, by time of storage (millions of years of sunlight creating coal, oil and gas), powering the largest fictionary money/debt bubble any monkey could be fooled into believing, I would say it's time to talk to David Graeber about what really happened in the past! The real connection is violence! Debt is voilence postponed; salt means peace, atleast for now!