Part 4/17:
Throughout history, money has been refined into more portable, durable, malleable, and fungible forms—characteristics that make it a good medium of exchange. Gold, for example, was once favored because it was rare and difficult to forge, yet even gold has drawbacks: it's heavy, and large transactions become impractical.
Modern currencies are mere abstractions—pieces of paper or digital representations not backed by physical assets like gold anymore. The US dollar hasn't been fully backed by gold since 1936, yet society still perceives it as valuable due to mutual trust. This shared delusion makes money an imaginary construct—a collective agreement that sustains vast societal and economic systems.