It's hardly a secret, but people who live their whole lives with a relatively stable currency experience a very powerful illusion.
I think it's fair to say that the crypto boom has greatly increased the general public's sense of the slippery nature of money.
The main other way you might get that broad understanding is by close exposure to currency collapse, hyperinflation or extreme volatility.
It's kind of a tribute to the USD that it's so mindblowing when people figure it out.
You're actually helping me make my point: Even if their own currency gave them the illusion of stability during their lifetime, that can only mean they have no knowledge of history or other countries where currencies have crashed. Hence, their illusion is based on having a meaty head.
Re:What is money, anyway?
by _notathrowaway on Monday March 28, 2022 @07:27AM
(#30829337)
And why is it bad that poorly educated people are getting more education? I don't know you, but your comment comes across as fairly elitist.
It's not them learning that's "bad" it's the pontificating.
You’re free to look away.
I'll take that as a compliment, not even kidding.
Study of money is very scant in the modern education system. Looking down on people newly exposed and interested in economics is boorish. I also believe there are incentives ingrained in our society to keep some of this knowledge "secret", as you say.
Education is engagement with ideas.
Are you sure about that? Seems a very narrow-minded definition of "education".
Rote repetition is also "education", for example.
Non-exclusive is
You’re free to look away.
The internet now makes all of us witnesses to this phenomenon of badly educated people thinking this and other pillars of modern society are "secret knowledge" when they're basically just not educated enough to know about them.