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(2016
midterm assignment) Model Student Midterm answers 2016 (Index) Essay 2: Personal / professional topic |
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Juan Segeada
Legal Tender of Tomorrow
To some money it is the closest thing to a religion they have, to others it is
the root of all evil, but to most in lies somewhere in between. The idea of
currency has always been interesting to me. When I was a kid I bartered candy
for items that I wanted to other kids. While in the United States Navy I visited
multiple countries and collected coins and bills from each. I even worked as a
corrections officer in the Mark Stiles Unit in Beaumont, Texas and I previously
expected to see cartons of cigarettes being used for currency. I was shocked to
find out that cigarettes have been banded since 1994 and now the inmates use
postal stamps as currency. There have been countless variations of tender used
by man since the beginning of civilization.
Currency is a symbol and in this paper I will discuss some forms of
currencies that are being used, developed, used in the media, and might be used
in the future depending on the climate of the era.
We live in a pivotal point of time where paper currencies coexist with digital
versions that are becoming more commonly used than the physical ones. Years ago
in the United States of America the dollar represented a portion of gold and
silver in the treasury; however, the dollar no longer does and what the dollar
represents now is a little more complicated. According to Greg Satell’s article
The Future of Money, “When the US
went off the gold standard in 1971, all currencies essential became fiat moneys,
with their value derived from the governments that issue them rather than from
commodities” (Forbs, 2014). There are currently multiple ways to pay for items
from cash, credit cards, PayPal, even digital bitcoins and now there is a way to
pay for gods using an application on your mobile phone. It is not unlikely that
in the near future a new form of currency might take over out of shear
convenience. The reduction of cost of printing the massive amount of bills
needed for circulation could also play a vital part in paper moneys extinction.
We live in a world where technology is growing at an exponential rate. It is not
hard to fathom a world similar to the ones we see on television or read in high
tech science fiction text. In a world where technology is vastly superior to
what we have today the currency is often similar to what we use today. The
currency often appears in the form of credits, bits, or some other form of data
rather than a physical form of currency like the dollar. In a high tech world
such as Paul Di Filippo's cyberpunk short story “Stone Lives” the immigrants
would take odd jobs that range from 1 to 10 in danger in hopes to receive
Citrine rejuve is they survived the job that is. This showed there still is a
form of currency, and that even in the future you there will be those willing to
do dangers work in hopes for minimal pay. “Lives” also showed the massive
differences between the lower class and upper class is massive; however, the
story hints that there is hope to found even when born nobody in the slums from
the Bungle. Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner never truly express what the legal
tender is in Realtime but they do emphasize mankind’s exploitation on lesser
civilization has now crossed time streams. Sam mentions that 6 billion live on
their earth and no one works if they do not want to and if you took a job on the
other side of the temporal beam it would set you up for the rest of your life,
”So I’m giving up fifteen years. When I get back, it’s the best of everything.
Anything I want.”(Mozart, 229). The invaders from Realtime would give modern day
good such as aspirin, cars, telephones and penicillin to the locals to appease
then while they plunder the earth of its oil and other priceless valuables and
they did this over countless timelines.
One of the most common emphases in apocalyptic literature is that basic needs
such as food and water will eventually become scarce. Starvation and dehydration
are often an everyday threat for the average person living in a dystopic world;
however, the currency used in these types of literatures is as diverse as how
the current world actually ended in each story. Will there even be a form of
currency in the end or is it essential to have a way to pay for goods, services,
water, and food stuffs? There are practical and often unique forms of currency
that have been implanted in various forms of post- apocalyptic media. Gasoline
is the primary form of currency in world of the Mad Max movie series because
everyone is searching for salvation in muscle bound cars. Strangely enough
bottle caps from the everyday sodas are the legal tender of the post-nuclear war
video game series Fallout. In the Fallout series the use of bottle caps seems
comedic; however, they are somewhat practical due to the size and limited
availability. To show his dedication to the one gamer even shipped 2,240 bottle
caps (11.2 pounds) to the games creators to pay for his copy upon the games
release. This of course was done as merely a joke but it did emphasize the
practicality of the caps as currency because it took years to collect the
amount. There is a strong possibility that our current tender could survive such
as in Parable where Laruen was astonished to see that what was left of
civilization was still clinging to the old way of life using paper currency and
having faith in the a corrupt police force.
In the future as long as there is some reminisce of society left I truly believe
that a form of currency will be paramount. In the end the form that currency
will be used in the will simply come down to the supply and demand of the times.
Sources
Bethesda Fallout 4 article
http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/26/fan-buys-fallout-4-pre-order-with-bottle-caps-5267198/
Forbes the future of money
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/11/08/the-future-of-money/#7f4d655a3324
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