Do you ever get a weird feeling when you reflect that money isn't actually 'real'?

[iloveeverykindofcat]

Okay, I know its 'real' in the sense of how it functions, but do you ever reflect how strange it is that we do all this work, make all these exchanges, do all this saving of something that doesn't actually exist? People I've mentioned this to IRL don't seem to share this feeling that its actually a very strange system - maybe I'm not explaining myself very well. But the money in my bank account, for example. Its just a number. I go to work in order to make the number go up, and almost everything else I do makes it go down. If someone went into the system and added a few zeros to it, my life would change beyond recognition...yet it doesn't actually exist? What is it?

Yup I often get this and no one understands when I try to explain! It’s not real, it’s just a number moving up and down on a screen

This is very deep for a Monday morning😃 I haven't thought about it like that ... I am now though! Interesting.

Unless you have a pot of gold sovereigns under the bed…..

I hear you.

An arbitrary representation of value. WTH.

I think its the increasingly cashless society that's making me feel it more. We don't even 'touch' money that much now.

An easy way to think of it is being stuck on a desert island with a suitcase containing a million pounds.

I'm with you.....but at least there is gold somewhere which underpins the system.....

Unlike bitcoin and digital currency which is based on nothing......

Yes! Because of this. I can't remember the last time I handled a five-pound note or even a 50p piece.

Increasingly so, yeah.

It's quite hard swallow the fact that we've created a system with abundant food, but some people don't have enough virtual credit to be allowed to eat it.

But gold itself has little inherent value on a fundamental level. A lump of gold cannot feed you or keep you warm. It's prized for its rarity, but it's not even the most useful of metals in a practical sense.

Yes op I've thought this. It seems barmy when you think about it too long.

Similar when I think too deeply of the situations protrayed in disaster series like one we watched where all the electricity in the world just disappeared (can't for the life of me remember it's name).

Just the disappearance of electricity and the majority of society ceased to exist overnight, because all the jobs we've made up of people sitting in offices and pushing paper and playing with numbers don't actually matter, they're not real.

Just made up jobs to support the management of made up numbers on screens.

I'm with you OP, I feel the same. Just a number, add and subtract.

I'm with you.....but at least there is gold somewhere which underpins the system.....

Gold ceased to underpin currencies ages ago. Most are Fiat, ie they are not backed by any commodity but rather on future earnings, and are purely based on trust. A £`1 coin is acceptable in exchange for goods or services solely because both parties trust it to be worth £1.

It totally does my head in. I’m so glad I’m not alone 😃

Yes I totally get this!! I feel like this too, it’s not ‘real’ yet it controls the way we can live , but it’s just artificial.

I use cash for most transactions

I had a weird daydream at the weekend about companies bank accounts and what they look like, for example British gas. Where do our payments go? Does their balance just fluctuate constantly? Who can withdraw? Do they have direct debit go out for their water bills for example?

So so weird!

Yes I do. And a bank note is a promise to pay the bearer. So it's an iou?

It is freaky. I've started thinking thats i should do things like buy really decent cast iron pans instead of having savings because they are real.

@QueenMabs it was that text on bank notes that first gave me this thought, when I was still a child. I noticed that it said 'I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of....'. At that time I still thought all money physically existed somewhere, at least in the form of notes. My mind was blown.

I totally agree. It only works because we all believe in it.

Yes. The thing that blows my mind most is how most of the reasons why we are continuing to destroy the planet and not put in place better systems to protect it, is all to do with money. But if the planet is destroyed money will be completely irrelevant.

Yes. And what I find really hard is that life is about actual things. Food, shelter, family. But if you don’t have enough of this imaginary thing you can’t actually do the things which underpin life. Somehow, a human construct (it’s something human society has made up, it’s not part of a ‘natural ecosystem’) which doesn’t actually support living things has become more valuable than actual living humans. We can use this artificial thing to prevent someone eating, because they don’t have enough of it. How is that ok?

It’s a shared myth. It’s ‘real’ because enough people believe it is and it’s integral to the extremely complicated system(s) we live in.
The effects of it are very real. If we dismiss the value of it then the structure of our society crumbles.