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What a coinkidink, I just finished watching episode 2 of "Connections" with James Burke which mentions this in the beginning of the episode, when talking about

by diggan 2y ago

What a coinkidink, I just finished watching episode 2 of "Connections" with James Burke which mentions this in the beginning of the episode, when talking about the invention of currency. The article from Egypt Today doesn't seem to mention the discovery of touchstone (which the episode does), which seemed like an important detail of "why gold?". Seems it's available on the Internet Archive too: https://archive.org/details/james-burke-connections_s01e02 https://archive.org/details/james-burke-connections_s01e02

pjmorris 2y ago
I had the same question about touchstone from the same episode. I am becoming a Burke-ite after digging up the mention of 'The Trigger Effect' episode of the 70's 'Connections' from an HN Crowdstrike thread and am now binge-watching the entire first series. Amazing stuff. I'd recently read 'The Ascent of Money', Ferguson, and was thinking there's more to be understood than what I found there. I've got 'Debt: The First 5000 Years', Graeber, in my queue, but am looking for other resources. Any ideas?
ynac 2y ago
"The Day the Universe Changed" is another James Burke contribution to both story telling and historical relationships almost never told elsewhere.
Bluestein 2y ago
Well, here's to the "Burkites" then, whole reason for the post :) (Was also watching ...)
nickbauman 2y ago
Thanks for posting! Burke uses the term "barter", which is wrong. Before coinage, people used credit. Barter was extremely rare.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  What do you mean? The credit is settled either in barter or coinage, isn't it?
  - vundercind 2y ago
    It necessarily has a unit of account, but you can undertake all kinds of transactions under a credit system with nobody involved exchanging, or intending to exchange, that actual thing (silver coins, goats, bails of flax, abstract “favors”, whatever)
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > Before coinage, people used credit. Barter was extremely rare. See also: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

by diggan 2y ago

pjmorris 2y ago

I had the same question about touchstone from the same episode. I am becoming a Burke-ite after digging up the mention of 'The Trigger Effect' episode of the 70's 'Connections' from an HN Crowdstrike thread and am now binge-watching the entire first series. Amazing stuff. I'd recently read 'The Ascent of Money', Ferguson, and was thinking there's more to be understood than what I found there. I've got 'Debt: The First 5000 Years', Graeber, in my queue, but am looking for other resources. Any ideas?

ynac 2y ago

"The Day the Universe Changed" is another James Burke contribution to both story telling and historical relationships almost never told elsewhere.

Bluestein 2y ago

Well, here's to the "Burkites" then, whole reason for the post :) (Was also watching ...)

nickbauman 2y ago

Thanks for posting! Burke uses the term "barter", which is wrong. Before coinage, people used credit. Barter was extremely rare.

carlosjobim 2y ago
What do you mean? The credit is settled either in barter or coinage, isn't it?
- vundercind 2y ago
  It necessarily has a unit of account, but you can undertake all kinds of transactions under a credit system with nobody involved exchanging, or intending to exchange, that actual thing (silver coins, goats, bails of flax, abstract “favors”, whatever)
throw0101c 2y ago
> Before coinage, people used credit. Barter was extremely rare. See also: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy