Hey ya’ll!

So, in case any of you haven’t noticed, the stock market has been buzzing lately. To summarize, young amateurs and ordinary folk have banded together to stick it to the man on Wall Street in retaliation for a shady practice called shorting. Here’s a meme courtesy of the users of r/wallstreetbets explaining the situation for rubes like me who don’t know jack about stock trading:

Power to the people! But putting aside our jubilance at the suffering of Wall Street for a minute, this Gamestop phenomenon is a prime example of some of the rapid changes that our sweeping our society as well as all of humanity, particularly pertaining to our evolving use of tokens. If you’re scratching your head and wondering what on Earth it is that I’m referring to, check out the work of Denise Schmandt-Besserat!

The basic gist is that since the dawn of civilization, we humans have always used some sort of tool to represent money and/or resources, which Denise Schmandt-Besserat refers to as tokens. In the beginning, we mostly used pebbles or clay figures to to keep track of our economies. Then we progressed to writing and pebbles and clay figures were gradually phased out. Then we began to mint coins and print the dollar bills that are ubiquitous today. And now, we see another form of token on the rise: digital currency.

The stock market is a prime example of digital currency; it exists as a data point rather than a physical object that you can touch like a pebble or a dollar bill. As our society digitizes, so to is our use of tokens. Pretty soon, we might evolve to a point where all of our tokens are digital, and we have a cashless society. This stock market business is only the beginning! Much to think about!