this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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Memes
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Memes! A way of describing cultural information being shared. An element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.
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Because direct trade and barter stopped making sense centuries ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money
Bartering was never the primary source of trade, and in prehistory, gift economies and sometimes loose concepts of debt occurred, while bartering was limited to potentially just strangers and enemies. The prehistory section is quite interesting here.
It seems that after prehistory during the formation of agriculture, instead of going to a barter based economy, "ledgers" were kept instead, which introduced the concept of debt and credit.
Note: I am not an anthropologist.
it’s almost as if we figured out money made the most sense thousands of years ago
Yes, not centuries. When large societies were formed with trade amongst strangers becoming more common, money and/or ledgers were created to keep track of specific amounts of debts and credits. There was also never a point in time in which bartering was the primary system of economics.