we make IT what IT is.
theTechFae2 min read·Just now--
It is indeed a blessing to be a fan of something; as a fan of BTS, the Korean boyband, I am privileged to study them with a different bias from those who are outside that club. My attention was drawn to certain recent fan reactions towards the members of the boyband and in this fandom, we are used to seeing the effects of idol limerence on fans, both extreme expressions and otherwise. Then a theory formed in my head; ‘money is money because we call it money, these people are idols because we placed such value on them!’
I decided to share my thoughts on the ‘Psychology of Collective Value’, and I will do that by sharing the questions that led me to that point, the whole thought process, and the answers I gathered to sate my curiosity.
- What is money? How does it come to be agreed on?
Money is a medium of exchange, a store of value(it keeps worth over time), and a unit of account, which means it helps measure value. It is a social construct — it is real, because society treats it as real — just like language; the word ‘물’ is ‘water’ in Hangeul because it was agreed to be that. The value of money is from the shared trust of the people. This was where I began to understand the role trust plays in any money discussion.
2. Why is money important?
Money reduces friction. I’ll give an example; imagine I have bread and you have salt, what if I do not want your salt? Then our transaction gets halted, that is bater friction. Money saves us from this while allowing savings, large-scale markets, future planning, investment and many other things. It converts effort to measurable worth.
Now, think of a scenario where how much you own becomes your worth, where Bitcoin becomes symbolic identity, a proxy self. I personally think consumerism is the regular-person version of idol limerence and worship. People attach their identity to objects, the same way they do to idols. They not only buy function, they buy meaning.
Since modern day capitalism often converts economic value to moral and social value, rich now equals better and poor equals less worthy.
3. What then is the business of the government with money?
Government gives money institutional trust. They act as central authority of belief enforcement, and this creates trust that the ‘money’ will be accepted as a legal tender, that counterfieting is punishable and that inflation is managed. The government controls money supply, interest rate and economic stabilization.
This is where decentralization, Web3 and crypto come in! I do hope you understood my train of thought so far. People distrust centralized control and want peer-to-peer money because of inflation fears, corruption, bank fees, the desire for autonomy and privacy….
Many people wish to transfer value without asking permission from banks or states. At this point, I am beginning to see the freedom people keep talking about. It really is appealing, don’t you think so?
~theTechFae.
