Unthinking value - when the less valuable things win

My least favourite topic at business school was macroeconomics. I felt like they were making things up to explain what just happened, then changing it all every time something new happened. Microeconomics made much more sense to me. But one thing that caught my attention was a discussion of currencies. (Like euros, dollars, pounds.) Specifically the idea that in a country where there are two currencies in circulation, the weakest currency would ‘win’. Two of the important functions of a currency are as a store of value and as a medium of exchange. Because no-one trusts the weaker currency as a store of value, it is used more as a medium of exchange. Hence it has more liquidity in the market. Hence it becomes the dominant currency. I am not sure that is always true, but I really like the idea. This idea reminded me of an interview I just watched with Yuval Noah Harari. You know, that guy who we all have at least three big books from, and feel guilty we haven’t read yet. He said a few really interesting things. One was that whenever your brain has two things to think about, it automatically thinks about the easy one, not necessarily the most valuable one. A similar example comes from the world of disinformation, in which I am immersed in in my current research. There is lots of evidence that people prefer and digest disinformation much more readily than true information. Disinformation is freed from the shackles of being accurate or needing to reflect the subtle nuances in its topic. Disinformation can be designed completely to be interesting, fun, addictive, shocking. In some cases disinformers aren’t even trying to deliver a specific message. They just want to shake things up. Make us more confused, angry, upset. More divided against each other. When we think of how valuable something is, we think of its intrinsic value. Like strong currencies, powerful and useful thoughts, accurate information. But in some cases what matters more is the liquidity of the thing. How much it flows and pervades. This is closely related to the discipline of system dynamics, and its idea of stocks and flows. In a hyperconnected, hyperspeed digital world, maybe flows are dominating stocks even more. Maybe unless we carefully design them out, the bad things, the less intrinsically valuable and useful things, win more. #unthink #unask #unlearn #value #currency #liquidity #disinformation