Losing Physical Currency

I find it quite astonishing how little people are speaking about the last penny being made. I wanted to talk about the transition of currency into the digital age a long time ago and we approach a cashless society each day. Whether this future holds a world full of cryptocurrency or simply federally controlled money in banks, it seems as the switch is happening silently. The fact that pennies have officially been stopped in creation truly leaves the door open to the rest of the US's coins vanishing. However, I can't imagine how long that would take given that the singular cent coin just now got removed but then again once the first is gone I believe the government will see an opportunity in saving money without printing money. Despite that, our government is still being run by really old dudes and in my experience with really old dudes and the girl version of dudes is that they aren't exactly fond of drastic change, especially to traditional things. I really think that there could be a perfect resolution brought to our government to a grand problem like printing money (bc i dont really know if there is a perfect solution to that right now) and they would still decline it. This really goes for any national issue as well but that's really just us as humans not being able to keep subjectivity out of our decisions.

The Independence Axiom and Human Decision-Making

We actually talked about that in business class, which in my professors word's was called making decisions non-optimal by the Independence Axiom. I don't necessarily think its a flaw of humans though. I mean if all decisions were made statistically and non-pathologically then I mean as the founder of Palantir said, humans aren't really optimal for the world. And the other way around would be doing everything in our own interest which 1.goes against the idea of a governed society or 2. results in the destruction of the earth's materials and life.

Cash, Nostalgia, and Who Really Benefits

Anyways, more about those coins, I'm honestly quite sad about their disappearance. In general, paying with cash is more of a nostalgic and foreign thing to me. I mean the majority of the reason I ever go out with cash ready is if I'm planning on going to local markets or very small businesses that have yet to accept digital currency. In correlation, I happen to go out more to local markets when I'm in a foreign country especially since family shops seem to exist in a grand amount near high-traffic tourist locations. Also this just came to my mind but I'm pretty sure a lot of political/powerful people love the fact that cash serves as a non-taxable form of currency so there's actually no way it'll get terminated completely. Unless somehow our governments (all governments) habit of being extremely corrupt happens to go away as the next generation fills their shoes, but I really don't see that happening. I think its crazy how little power the people of America actually hold because of economic classes.

Consumerism and the Digital Toolkit

Stepping back to look at this in the bigger its actually quite related to Ted K's thoughts on consumerism. The further along we go with this digital age of currency the more standardized technology, an expensive asset, becomes. With this transition it would almost be impossible to live day-to-day life without a cellphone, laptop, etc. Having this constant "improvement" in our society's toolkit really just emphasizes how hardly we are expected to work in order to afford this "toolkit". Looking at it this way, I really think that whoevers in charge will really just go with whatever makes them more money.

Intelligence Isn't Everything

Going back to something I mentioned about the independence axiom, i think people really need to stop basing so much stuff on pure intelligence and objectivity. I see this issue consistently when talking down on others especially when it comes to politics and invalidating someone's thoughts. Although it makes logical sense for the smartest people to be in charge, emotional intelligence is real guys. We've all heard the stories of these geniuses who are also insane, because we need rational people who also understand that every human is equal. That's for another blog tho, i really hate when people invalidate someone's thoughts simply because they're less intelligent, we are all equal! okay bye.