TED演讲:货币的未来(2)

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But it was too inconvenient¹ to think about actually shipping² all of that gold over to Europe. 但想想看，要把数额巨大的黄金运回欧洲，这是件多么困难的事。

So instead, someone went to where that gold was being stored and they just labeled it as belonging to France now. 最后，有人想出了一个方法，法兰西银行派出工作人员飞往美国黄金储备处，把属于法国的黄金打上标记。

And everyone agreed that France owned the gold. It's just like those Rai stones. 所有人都承认这些黄金是属于法国的，这就像之前提到的石灰岩石币，不是吗？

The point I want to make with these two examples is that there's nothing inherently valuable about a dollar or a stone or a coin. 我提到这两个例子的原因是，没有东西是存在固有价值的，不论是美元、石头还是硬币。

The only reason these things have any value is because we've all decided³ they should. 这些东西拥有价值，只是因为我们赋予了它们价值。

And because we've decided that, they do. 也正是因为我们这样定义，它们才有价值。

Money is about the exchanges and the transactions that we have with each other. Money isn't anything objective. 金钱是存在我们之间、用于交换和交易的东西，钱并不是客观具体存在的事物。

It's about a collective story that we tell each other about value.  它是关于价值的故事的集合，帮助我们互相了解价值。

A collective fiction. And that's a really powerful concept. 也是虚构的集合。这是一种很强大的概念。

In the past two decades, we've begun to use digital money. 在过去二十年里，我们才刚开始使用数字货币。

So I get paid via direct deposit, I pay my rent via bank transfer, I pay my taxes online. 我的工资直接存入我的储蓄账户，我通过银行转账来支付房租、网上缴税。

And every month, a small amount of money is deducted⁴ from my paycheck and invested in mutual⁵ funds in my retirement⁶ account. 每个月我薪水中的一小部分都会存入我退休账户里的互惠基金名下。

All of these interactions are literally⁷ just changing 1's and 0's on computers.  毫不夸张的说，所有这些交易行为只是电脑程序中1和0的改变。

There's not even anything physical, like a stone or a coin.  甚至都没有像石头或者硬币那样的实实在在的物质存在。

Digital money makes it so that I can pay someone around the world in seconds. 数字货币的使用，可以让遥远之外的某人在几秒之内就收到钱。

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