AI-powered
podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
3min chapter
#239 – Niall Ferguson: History of Money, Power, War, and Truth
Lex Fridman Podcast
A Scent of Money
The origin of money predates coins. In ancient Mesopotamia, there were relations between creditors and debtors. From that point on, there's a great evolutionary experiment to see what the most convenient way is for people to record their relationships. What emerges in the time of the ancient Greeks are coins, metal, tokens - usually bearing the imprint of a state or a monarch. That's the sort of more familiar form of money that we still use today for very, very small transactions. I expect coins will all be gone by the time my youngest son is my age,. but they're a last remnant of a very, very old way of doing simple transactions.
00:00
Transcript
Episode notes
Get the Snipd
podcast app
Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
AI-powered
Discover
highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode
Save any
moment
Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways
Share
& Export
Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more
AI-powered
podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Discover
highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode