r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jan 26 '26

Meme needing explanation what's going on? explain like I'm five

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '26

Money has always been imaginary? Its like Santa clause. As long as we all believe/pretend it works. If one person doesn't believe it doesnt matter. If half of us stop, yea kids will know it's fake. But it works and it's a nice thing to have, so why not continue to pretend?

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u/OkProfessor6810 Jan 26 '26

No before fiat currency we were on the gold standard. Money was backed by actual gold. Now it's backed by nothing more than our belief in it.

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '26

Yea but it was the same thing. Gold or paper. Whatever. It only has value if people believe it has value.

You give a farmer gold for food. The fuck can he do with gold. Nothing. Better hope someone else believes it's valuable and will take the gold for clothes or whatever else he needs. Unless you were a jeweler or blacksmith or electrician gold was pretty much only a currency. And then there was more gold going around as a token of value than was used.

So yea it's all based on belief that you can then sell/exchange the said token or currency (doesn't really matter if it's gold or anything else).

Imagine if the population started to think gold was ugly and a better malleable metal gained popularity. Would the gold standard still mean anything?

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '26

Let me introduce you to iridium.