The tribe grows weary of the constant haggling over the value of different goods. They agreed there should be one thing by which you could measure the value of all of the other things. One thing is worth one mushroom. Two things is worth a prickley pear. You get the idea. The thing was, no one could agree on what the thing should be. Wilma said that the mammoth should become the standard unit of measurement because the spirit of the mastodon wills it to be so. This method proved to be impractical because mammoths aren't very portable. Also, once you started breaking them down into parts small enough to pay for inexpensive goods the parts weren't interchangeable. The value of eight ounces of mammoth tail just wasn't the same value as an eight ounce mammoth fillet. So they were right back to bickering about the value of every item.
Fred said they should use mushrooms instead. After all they had fungibility. Rendered helpless by Fred's pun the tribe acceded to mushrooms being the new thing. It worked well at first but then the mushrooms started to go bad. They lacked the durability to store value over a long time. Betty suggested that the thing should be this one type of shiny rock that she really liked. It was portable, durable and interchangeable.
"Rock may be practical standard accounting unit and basis of exchange but shiny rock have no intrinsic value for Barney." After complimenting Barney on using some of the new words she taught him Betty reminds him that she likes the shiny rocks. She likes them so much that if a man has the shiny rocks he becomes very attractive to Betty. Fred and Barney immediately recognize the value of the shiny rock. Wilma doesn't really get anything out of the shiny rocks. Betty still ignores her despite her wanton displays of shiny rocks. However all the members of the tribe are accepting the shiny rocks now. Wilma realizes that as long as the rest of the tribe thinks they have value, she can reliably trade them for any other item. Money is valuable because it is universally accepted.
We continued to use shiny rocks for most of recorded human history. America was using precious metals as a basis for the value of our currency until 1971. We like to use paper money now because we can just print as much as we want.* So now my space based friend you understand what money is. Got any space rocks? I don't know what spent space reactor rod means, but it sure is shiny...
*While paper money is easy to physically print each new dollar devalues all the other dollars that currently exist. Other countries aren't going to exchange as much of their currency for a dollar due to the rapid increase in supply of dollars. This would affect the cost of goods and services in the US because in case you didn't flipping notice we are living in a global economy. Take your head out of your ham hocks. Flips table, publishes post. Probably should have done that in the opposite order.
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