Money is the probably the most successful story ever told. It has no objective value... but then you have these master storytellers: the big bankers, the finance ministers... and they come, and they tell a very convincing story.
Interpretation
Money's value is subjective, shaped by narratives created by influential figures.
This quote by Yuval Noah Harari highlights the idea that money, despite having no intrinsic objective value, functions successfully through the powerful stories told by influential individuals like bankers and finance ministers. These storytellers create a convincing narrative that gives money its perceived worth, illustrating how societal constructs influence our understanding and relationship with currency.
In practice
During a financial seminar to discuss the importance of perception in investments.
We control the world basically because we are the only animals that can cooperate flexibly in very large numbers. And if you examine any large-scale human cooperation, you will always find that it is based on some fiction like the nation, like money, like human rights.
I titled the book 'Homo Deus' because we really are becoming gods in the most literal sense possible. We are acquiring abilities that have always been thought to be divine abilities - in particular, the ability to create life. And we can do with that whatever we want.
The notion of superhumans is using bioengineering and artificial intelligence to upgrade human abilities. If they use the power to change themselves, to change their own minds, their own desires, then we have no idea what they will want to do.
Techno-humanism aims to amplify the power of humans, creating cyborgs and connecting humans to computers, but it still sees human interests and desires as the highest authority in the universe.
The most important question in 21st-century economics may well be, 'What should we do with all the superfluous people, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better than humans?'
Take Google Maps or Waze. On the one hand, they amplify human ability - you are able to reach your destination faster and more easily. But at the same time, you are shifting the authority to the algorithm and losing your ability to find your own way.
It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears.
When they are preparing for war, those who rule by force speak most copiously about peace until they have completed the mobilization process.
A superior man in dealing with the world is not for anything or against anything. He follows righteousness as the standard.
We ask only to be reassured About the noises in the cellar And the window that should not have been open
The tree of life knows that, whatever happens, the warm music spinning around it will never stop. However much death may come, however much blood may flow, the music will dance men and women as long as the air breaths them and the land plows and loves them.
When I grew up in the South, I was taught that segregation was the will of God, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it.
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