When most of us think of money we think of
circular fragments of metal, inked sheets of paper, and quasi-magical plastic issued
by the bank-fairy. But what did people do before money? Well, long before the advent of modern day currencies,
people engaged in a practice known as barter. Bartering is the direct exchange of goods
and services for other goods and services. For example your average Neolithic transaction
may look a little something like this. Man A owns axe. Man B owns bag of corn. And assuming Man A is in need of corn and Man B is in
need of an axe, a successful trade is now possible. However, this also highlights a fundamental
limitation. As both parties must possess an item or skill
that the other need or wants the ability to carry out a successful transaction heavily
relies on coincidence. This is a problem known as the coincidence
of wants. Man A is in need of corn but Man B is not
in need of an axe. Thus no trade. Thus Man A starve to death. And while Man A may AXEidental that axe into
the neck of Man B and simply take the corn, it would technically not be barter anymore
as Man B has seized to exist. So a non-violent solution to this problem
would be an item that everyone wants. And this is the basic function of money. Money was first used in the form of cows,
sheep, camels, and other forms of livestock. But after people kept snapping their spine
attempting to carry 15 cows in their wallet, a more portable form of currency was desperately
needed. A specific type of seashell known as cowrie
were used as currency for many centuries largely due to their portability. And ease-of-use as well as durability has
really been the determining factors of what is and isn't money ever since. Various items used as currency over the millennia
include gold, silver, stones, pelts, rice, salt, pepper, tea, cheese, hemp, barley, rum,
beads, knives, arrowheads, and teeth. Metal coins first appeared across Asia some
two and a half thousand years ago but something even lighter and more portable was needed
for extremely large transactions. So the Chinese began experimenting with leather
and eventually paper. Then, as society continued to grow and technology
improved, even paper became too cumbersome so we literally made money as intangible as
the concept itself. In a previous video I've talked about pareidolia. It's when we incorrectly perceive a familiar
pattern such as a face on Mars or a petrified tree. And his naked cousin. Well, banknotes have their own fair share
of pareidolic history. The most infamous one is likely the supposed
Illuminati-related owl on the United States $1 bill. In reality, it's just a squiggly pattern and
less obscured and near-identical patterns found elsewhere on the same note can back
this up. Now, that being said, I'm personally gonna stick
to "subliminal message left by the Illuminati" because that is just objectively more exciting. Another example is this banknote first issued
in 1968 on the small island country of Seychelles. Many believe that someone intentionally arranged these palm trees in such a way
that they spell out the word "SEX". It could simply be pareidolia at work but
it's intentionality is somewhat strengthened by the fact that another denomination of the
same series is also said to contain a similar anomaly. Namely another word and this time the word
is "SCUM". This note was first released in Germany after
World War I and allegedly features a vampire. I'll admit, It took me quite some time to even spot this
one for myself but the mans neck is supposed to serve as the vampire's face, like this, and the mans
left shoulder serve as the vampire's hood or hat. Because as we all know, headgear is the signature
tell of a vampire. I don't know why they thought this was a vampire
because it's obviously a happy mole. With a hat.. and hair. Finally, the entire series of notes issued
by the Bank of Canada in 1954 supposedly depicts the devil himself. Much like the hat-sporting vampire, Satan
is quite difficult to spot (because it's all in your head) but he's right here. Horns and everything. If you draw them on. This devilish mind-trick bothered people so
much that the notes actually had to be modified and rereleased. Few human inventions are as ubiquitous as
banknotes. The vast majority of the population handles
banknotes on a regular basis. But this constant fingering means that money
is a microcosm of its environment. In other words, everything you touch you transfer
over to the money you handle and the next person does the same and the next person does
the same and you get the idea. Eventually, your hard earned cash is little
more than a sponge that you happily share with the rest of the world. Multiple studies have consistently demonstrated
that banknotes from around the globe both contain and allow for the growth and transmittance
of various pathogens. The most common are various strains of staph
which can lead to skin infections as well as pathogens typically associated with fecal
contamination. Let me say that again. It is not uncommon for your money to contain
traces of feces. But as long as you maintain regular sanitation
habits and develop a taste for stool then you should be fine. But the real concern is that monies could
serve as the perfect carrier and instigate an epidemic because it has been shown that
more dangerous pathogens could survive for days, weeks, or even months on the surface. So the medium of exchange could become the
medium of infection. The confederation Oxfam, which focuses on
the alleviation of global poverty, estimated in January of 2015 that by the same time next
year, the richest 1% would own more than the rest of the world combined. It turns out that this estimation was absolutely
right. Global inequality is now so extreme that 1%
of humanity holds more wealth than the remaining 99%. Not only that but in the 2017 report, the
eight richest men on the planet now owns the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion. That's the wealth of half the global population
equal to that of a mere eight people. I've always seen Scrooge McDuck as a caricature
of greed but turns out it was a bloody documentary. One of the most recognizable currency symbols
in the world, which is sometimes used as a generic symbol for money as a whole, is the
dollar sign. It's been used to represent numerous currencies
across the globe with some of the largest being the United States dollar (US$), the
Mexican peso (MX$), the Brazilian real (R$), the Canadian dollar (CA$), and the Australian
dollar (AU$). However, no one is quite sure where the symbol
came from. The most accepted theory trace its origins
back to the American Revolution and the subsequent minting of the first US coinage during the
1700s. The US dollar was based on the Spanish-American
peso which was commonly abbreviated as "ps." But as you can see, this abbreviation was
often written quite hastily and thus the two letters eventually became superimposed upon
one another. It's believed that this gradual amalgamation
resulted in an S speared by a straight vertical line. Now, the double-stroked variation, known as a Cifrão,
may also be a derivative of the Spanish-American peso which featured the Spanish coat of arms consisting of two vertical pillars embraced by S-shaped banners. Which, now that I've made them green,
looks like snakes. Another theory suggest that the symbol is
an amalgamation of a U and an S, which is an abbreviation of either the "United States"
or "Units of Silver". But again, no one is quite sure and when you're
not quite sure, you can use this symbol. It's known as the international currency sign
or scarab, for short, and can be used to denote any unspecified currency. A lot of different currencies also contain
traces of drugs. Especially cocaine. In fact, this is true for the vast majority
of banknotes in countries such as the US, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Brazil, and Spain
just to name a few. There's been a few theories as to why this
is and, as fun as it would be to imagine, it's most likely not because the whole world
is snorkeling through winter wonderland every lunch break. Instead it's likely due to a combination of
factors such as cocaine being an extremely fine power that could easily spread en masse through
the use of counting machines and money laundering. Nevertheless, it's only microscopic traces
between 1 billionth to 1 thousand of a gram, so it's practically nothing but technically
something. Some of the financial terms still in use today
have some quite interesting etymologies. Like the word salary. As previously mentioned, salt was once used
as a form of currency and the word salary derives from the Latin word "salarium" which
quite literally means "salt-money". And salt-money is even in use today as every time
someone wins the lottery, it makes everyone else salty. The slang term "buck" likely comes from a
time when deerskin or buckskin was used as currency. And the word money itself derived from the
Latin word "moneta" as the Temple of Juno Moneta in ancient Rome is where the first
Roman coins were minted. But as money existed prior to the word for
money being invented, it is safe to say that time travel does exist. Which is nice. The person most prevalently featured on the
face of currency throughout all of human history is that of the current queen of England, Queen
Elizabeth II. Not only denominations of British currency
but that of other nations as well. Only 9% of worldwide bills feature women but
out of all the banknotes that do, 63% is that of the queens likeness. She made her first appearance at the ripe
age of 8 when, in 1935, she appeared on the Canadian $20 notes. Over the years she's appeared on various banknotes
from Australia, Jamaica, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Cyprus, Bermuda, Scotland, among many other
places. In fact, she's appeared on the face of so
many different banknotes that it's possible to create a sort of progressive timeline of
her life. So I took the time to do just that. From 1935 all the way to present day. And don't you dare make this into
a .gif without giving credit! Humans are actually not the only species capable
of understanding the use of money. No animal in nature has so far been observed
to use a medium of exchange but researchers have been able to teach monkey's some fundamental
concepts of money. For example, in this experiment about inequity,
the two monkeys are supposed to hand the researcher a rock in exchange for some food. So the rocks acts as the money. However, as the monkey on the left receives
bland cucumber while his neighbor receives tasty grapes for the exact same amount of
work and money, he perceive it as an injustice. In another experiment, monkeys were given
the choice between a number of different foods that they could buy with coins. All food options were initially equally priced
and thus the monkeys would always buy the food they liked the most. But when the price of their favorite food
was increased, they would actually buy some of the cheaper food in order to get the most
out of their money. And sometimes the male monkeys would completely
ignore the food and instead use their coins to pay the females for sex. The females would then use that money to buy
food for themselves. In other words, the first recorded case of
animal prostitution. The man on the United States $100 bill, Benjamin Franklin himself, once said: "Money has never
made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has, the more one wants." And there is a certain level of truth to this
sentiment backed up by scientific research. First of all, having money is obviously going
to make you happier than not having money but plenty of research have demonstrated a
correlation between wealth and generosity. On average, the wealthier you are, the less
generous you become. And this is an important finding because generosity
has been shown to benefit general well-being regardless of culture, social status, and
wealth. A massive study involving more than 200,000
participants across 136 countries has evinced that: "Human beings around the world derive
emotional benefits from using their financial resources to help others." Something known as prosocial spending. Now, the reason for this decrease in generosity
is that merely thinking about money makes you less sensitive to the feelings of others
and more narcissistic. One study explains that: "...reminders of money orient people to independence
and therefore lead them to prefer greater distance from others and to be less helpful
toward them." Basically it boils down to a duality of motivations. The pursuit of wealth is kind to the selfish
while the pursuit of happiness is kind to the selfless. The key seems to be to find a balance between
the two.
The guy who made this video -- LEMMiNO -- makes some quality vids. Check out his other stuff: HERE