WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.680 Imagine an alien, right, like an alien trying 00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:05.139 to understand human civilization just by tapping 00:00:05.139 --> 00:00:07.500 into our collective digital brain. Oh, that's 00:00:07.500 --> 00:00:09.380 a dangerous game for them to play. Right. So 00:00:09.380 --> 00:00:11.580 they type in the simple, highly recognizable 00:00:11.580 --> 00:00:14.179 string of characters, the symbol for a dollar, 00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:17.719 followed by a one and two zeros. A hundred dollars. 00:00:17.920 --> 00:00:21.039 They're probably expecting a really clean mathematical 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:23.660 definition of Earth's value system. Exactly. 00:00:23.980 --> 00:00:26.460 But instead of pure math, they find this globally 00:00:26.460 --> 00:00:29.539 traded unit of wealth. the historical scars of 00:00:29.539 --> 00:00:32.600 Zimbabwean hyperinflation, and, wait for it, 00:00:32.820 --> 00:00:36.039 a Canadian alternative folk country band. It 00:00:36.039 --> 00:00:38.899 is the absolute definition of categorical chaos. 00:00:39.100 --> 00:00:41.700 It really is. Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, 00:00:41.859 --> 00:00:45.159 we are on a very specific mission for you. We're 00:00:45.159 --> 00:00:47.899 taking a microscopic look at that single seemingly 00:00:47.899 --> 00:00:51.039 straightforward text string, $100, by analyzing 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:54.219 its Wikipedia disambiguation page. Which is such 00:00:54.219 --> 00:00:56.780 a perfect example of how the tools we use to 00:00:56.780 --> 00:00:59.420 organize information, well, they can completely 00:00:59.420 --> 00:01:01.759 alter our understanding of the world. Yeah, because 00:01:01.759 --> 00:01:04.439 when I say $100, I'm guessing that you listening 00:01:04.439 --> 00:01:07.659 to this right now immediately picture a crisp 00:01:07.659 --> 00:01:11.599 United States $100 bill. a Benjamin Franklin. 00:01:11.700 --> 00:01:14.379 Oh, for sure. That is the default for a massive 00:01:14.379 --> 00:01:16.760 portion of the English speaking world. But the 00:01:16.760 --> 00:01:18.939 source material we're analyzing today reveals 00:01:18.939 --> 00:01:23.200 a massive tangled web. It's this wild mix of 00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:26.019 global economics and shared linguistic symbols. 00:01:26.180 --> 00:01:28.000 We usually assume a symbol is a fixed anchor, 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:31.239 right? Like a red octagon means stop, period. 00:01:31.340 --> 00:01:33.719 Right, it's universal. But in digital taxonomy, 00:01:33.959 --> 00:01:36.959 a symbol is just a shape. This disambiguation 00:01:36.959 --> 00:01:39.239 page we're looking at isn't just a list of money. 00:01:40.219 --> 00:01:43.519 It's almost like an accidental map of human history. 00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:45.959 I love that phrase, an accidental map. Yeah, 00:01:45.959 --> 00:01:48.260 it shows us how a single symbol fractures into 00:01:48.260 --> 00:01:51.379 dozens of different global realities based entirely 00:01:51.379 --> 00:01:53.599 on the cultural context of whoever's typing it 00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:55.359 into their keyboard. Okay, let's unpack this 00:01:55.359 --> 00:01:57.400 because the source starts us off with a primary 00:01:57.400 --> 00:02:01.519 list of quote, $100 banknotes, bills or coins. 00:02:01.799 --> 00:02:04.219 And you definitely have the expected heavy hitters 00:02:04.219 --> 00:02:06.969 right at the top. Right, the United States $100 00:02:06.969 --> 00:02:10.490 bill, the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand 00:02:10.490 --> 00:02:14.189 $100 notes. And then you get into the major Asian 00:02:14.189 --> 00:02:17.710 markets. the Hong Kong dollar. And the new Taiwan 00:02:17.710 --> 00:02:21.509 dollar, which the source specifically notes the 00:02:21.509 --> 00:02:23.969 fifth series of that banknote. Which I think 00:02:23.969 --> 00:02:26.150 is a great detail. It really grounds us in the 00:02:26.150 --> 00:02:28.770 fact that these are physical, iterated pieces 00:02:28.770 --> 00:02:31.050 of paper currently circulating in people's wallets. 00:02:31.150 --> 00:02:33.750 But then the logic of the page seemingly just 00:02:33.750 --> 00:02:36.669 breaks down completely. Sitting right there between 00:02:36.669 --> 00:02:39.830 the New Zealand dollar and the US dollar is the 00:02:39.830 --> 00:02:44.460 Nicaraguan 100 Cordoba note. the Cordoba. Yeah. 00:02:44.740 --> 00:02:46.719 And a bit further down, you have the banknotes 00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:49.419 of Zimbabwe. I really have to push back on this 00:02:49.419 --> 00:02:51.840 categorization. How do you mean? Well, it feels 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:54.800 less like a curated encyclopedic entry and more 00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:57.560 like a lost and found box at a massive international 00:02:57.560 --> 00:03:00.560 airport. Like, why is a Nicaraguan Cordoba thrown 00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:02.659 into the dollar box? You're hitting on the core 00:03:02.659 --> 00:03:05.400 mechanism of what a disambiguation page actually 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:09.219 is. And to get it, it requires shifting how we 00:03:09.219 --> 00:03:11.520 think about language. OK, I'm with you. You are 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:13.919 looking at the dollar symbol. and you're reading 00:03:13.919 --> 00:03:16.620 the word dollar in your head. But a database 00:03:16.620 --> 00:03:18.560 does not read the word dollar. It just reads 00:03:18.560 --> 00:03:21.120 the code. Exactly. It reads a typographic umbrella. 00:03:21.580 --> 00:03:23.919 The dolly is just a shorthand character utilized 00:03:23.919 --> 00:03:27.300 by numerous sovereign nations to denote entirely 00:03:27.300 --> 00:03:30.500 distinct currencies. So the Cordoba uses the 00:03:30.500 --> 00:03:33.560 symbol, even though it's not a dollar. Yep. The 00:03:33.560 --> 00:03:35.960 human editors and the algorithms maintaining 00:03:35.960 --> 00:03:38.960 Wikipedia, they have to account for that string 00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:42.919 match. They are literally forced to toss vastly 00:03:42.919 --> 00:03:46.400 different economic histories into one digital 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:48.969 triage center. But wait, isn't that actually 00:03:48.969 --> 00:03:51.409 a terrible way to organize information? I mean, 00:03:51.530 --> 00:03:54.409 from a user design perspective, if 99 % of people 00:03:54.409 --> 00:03:57.430 typing $100 are looking for the U .S. bill or 00:03:57.430 --> 00:03:59.789 maybe the Canadian one, forcing them to sift 00:03:59.789 --> 00:04:03.409 through a defunct Zimbabwean banknote seems incredibly 00:04:03.409 --> 00:04:05.250 inefficient. It might seem inefficient for the 00:04:05.250 --> 00:04:08.610 majority. Yeah, but it is a master class in epistemological 00:04:08.610 --> 00:04:10.610 neutrality. Epistemological neutrality. That's 00:04:10.610 --> 00:04:13.090 a big term. It just means Wikipedia operates 00:04:13.090 --> 00:04:16.870 on a strict neutral point of view policy. The 00:04:16.870 --> 00:04:19.389 database cannot judge the purchasing power, the 00:04:19.389 --> 00:04:21.750 stability, or the global dominance of a currency. 00:04:22.089 --> 00:04:24.389 It doesn't care who's winning the economic race. 00:04:24.649 --> 00:04:27.389 Exactly. Let's look at the Zimbabwean banknote 00:04:27.389 --> 00:04:30.410 you just mentioned. In the late 2000s, Zimbabwe 00:04:30.410 --> 00:04:33.290 experienced catastrophic hyperinflation. Right. 00:04:33.370 --> 00:04:37.029 The stories from that era are just wild. Tragic, 00:04:37.050 --> 00:04:39.829 really. The government printed money to pay debts, 00:04:40.149 --> 00:04:43.009 which massively diluted the currency pool. Prices 00:04:43.009 --> 00:04:46.670 were doubling every 24 hours. Wow. Every 24 hours. 00:04:46.889 --> 00:04:49.230 So a $100 note became functionally worthless 00:04:49.230 --> 00:04:52.129 in the time it took to walk to a market. Compare 00:04:52.129 --> 00:04:54.750 that to the presumed bedrock stability of the 00:04:54.750 --> 00:04:57.670 U .S. $100 bill. In the real world, the economic 00:04:57.670 --> 00:05:00.350 gulf between those two pieces of paper is staggering. 00:05:00.529 --> 00:05:02.509 But on this webpage, they're identical. They 00:05:02.509 --> 00:05:04.329 really are. They're just two bullet points with 00:05:04.329 --> 00:05:07.050 the exact same font size. That is the flattening 00:05:07.050 --> 00:05:09.910 effect of data ontology. The disambiguation page 00:05:09.910 --> 00:05:13.189 acts as a structural equalizer. It strips away 00:05:13.189 --> 00:05:16.019 all macroeconomic hierarchy. That's fascinating. 00:05:16.579 --> 00:05:20.360 $100 that buys a week of groceries and $100 that 00:05:20.360 --> 00:05:23.839 can't buy a single grain of rice are mathematically 00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:26.839 equal in the eyes of the search bar. Simply because 00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:30.040 they share a typographical shape. So if the symbol 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:33.399 acts as this digital lost and found box, what 00:05:33.399 --> 00:05:36.439 happens to the actual word dollar? because the 00:05:36.439 --> 00:05:38.339 source material then moves us to an entirely 00:05:38.339 --> 00:05:40.600 new section. The other currencies list, right? 00:05:40.620 --> 00:05:42.720 Yeah, under the heading, other currencies that 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:45.860 issue $100 banknotes, bills or coins. And this 00:05:45.860 --> 00:05:49.139 list is a marathon. It expands the scope dramatically, 00:05:49.439 --> 00:05:52.379 moving from those heavy hitters to a massive 00:05:52.379 --> 00:05:54.459 network of localized economies. Let's just look 00:05:54.459 --> 00:05:56.100 at the Caribbean and the Americas for a second. 00:05:56.139 --> 00:05:58.839 We have the Barbadian dollar, the Belize dollar, 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:01.459 Bermudian dollar, Cayman Islands dollar. The 00:06:01.459 --> 00:06:03.779 Eastern Caribbean dollar. Yes, the Guyanese dollar, 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:07.519 Jamaican dollar. and the Trinidad and Tobago 00:06:07.519 --> 00:06:09.500 dollar. And then you cross the Atlantic. And 00:06:09.500 --> 00:06:11.680 you hit the Liberian dollar and the Namibian 00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:14.160 dollar in Africa. Right. You keep going into 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:17.100 Asia and Oceania and you find the Brunei dollar, 00:06:17.399 --> 00:06:19.980 the Fijian dollar, the Singapore dollar, and 00:06:19.980 --> 00:06:22.779 the Solomon Islands dollar. Quite a tour. I look 00:06:22.779 --> 00:06:25.759 at this incredible rhythm of names and I really 00:06:25.759 --> 00:06:29.000 have to ask, at what point does the word dollar 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:32.060 stop belonging to North America and just become 00:06:32.060 --> 00:06:35.019 a universal synonym for money? That's a great 00:06:35.019 --> 00:06:37.379 question. Because I think we suffer from extreme 00:06:37.379 --> 00:06:40.779 currency myopia in the West. We just assume we 00:06:40.779 --> 00:06:43.180 own the word. What's fascinating here is how 00:06:43.180 --> 00:06:46.360 that massive list, just by existing in a database, 00:06:47.100 --> 00:06:50.639 paints a map of global trade, colonialism and 00:06:50.639 --> 00:06:53.199 the mechanics of cultural export. It's like linguistic 00:06:53.199 --> 00:06:55.959 DNA tracing. Exactly. You mentioned currency 00:06:55.959 --> 00:06:58.560 myopia. We naturally assume the word dollar is 00:06:58.560 --> 00:07:01.439 inherently American, but it isn't. The word is 00:07:01.439 --> 00:07:03.740 actually derived from a 16th -century Bohemian 00:07:03.740 --> 00:07:07.019 silver coin. Wait, really? Bohemia? Yeah. In 00:07:07.019 --> 00:07:09.199 1518, the Kingdom of Bohemia started minting 00:07:09.199 --> 00:07:12.360 silver coins from a mine in Jökulsvall. Jökulsvall, 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:15.000 OK. The coins became known as Jökumsdallars, 00:07:15.259 --> 00:07:17.000 which, as you can imagine, was a mouthful, so 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:19.100 it was eventually shortened to Taylor. So the 00:07:19.100 --> 00:07:21.459 root of the most famous financial word in the 00:07:21.459 --> 00:07:24.639 modern world is a 500 -year -old silver mine 00:07:24.639 --> 00:07:27.199 in central Europe. Yep. The linguistic journey 00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:30.680 is incredible. Taylor morphed into dolder in 00:07:30.680 --> 00:07:33.480 Dutch and eventually dollar in English. That 00:07:33.480 --> 00:07:36.259 is wild. But it was actually the Spanish Empire 00:07:36.259 --> 00:07:39.079 that really spread the concept globally. The 00:07:39.079 --> 00:07:42.180 Spanish peso de ocho, or piece of eight, was 00:07:42.180 --> 00:07:44.560 widely used in international trade. It became 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:47.759 colloquially known as the Spanish dollar. Ah, 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:51.639 the piece of eight. Pirate money exactly pirate 00:07:51.639 --> 00:07:54.120 money. So when the British North American colonies 00:07:54.120 --> 00:07:57.079 rebelled They rejected the British pound and 00:07:57.079 --> 00:07:59.259 officially adopted the dollar to align with the 00:07:59.259 --> 00:08:01.220 Spanish currency that was already circulating 00:08:01.220 --> 00:08:04.259 in the Americas Oh, man, that completely recontextualizes 00:08:04.259 --> 00:08:07.040 this entire list for me how so well when we look 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:08.939 at the Jamaican dollar or the Namibian dollar 00:08:08.939 --> 00:08:11.079 We aren't just looking at countries copying the 00:08:11.079 --> 00:08:13.939 United States at all We're looking at the cascading 00:08:13.939 --> 00:08:17.560 ripples of a 16th century Bohemian silver standard 00:08:17.560 --> 00:08:20.379 traveling through the Spanish Empire, being adopted 00:08:20.379 --> 00:08:22.939 by British colonies, and then being inherited 00:08:22.939 --> 00:08:25.779 or chosen by newly independent sovereign nations 00:08:25.779 --> 00:08:28.500 over centuries. And that shared linguistic root 00:08:28.500 --> 00:08:31.399 creates a profound categorical headache for an 00:08:31.399 --> 00:08:34.200 encyclopedia. I can imagine. If you are building 00:08:34.200 --> 00:08:37.379 a tool to help humanity find information and 00:08:37.379 --> 00:08:40.120 20 different sovereign nations call their highest 00:08:40.120 --> 00:08:44.460 or most common denomination a $100 note, you 00:08:44.460 --> 00:08:47.019 cannot prioritize one without disenfranchising 00:08:47.019 --> 00:08:49.500 the rest. You have to play fair. Right. You have 00:08:49.500 --> 00:08:51.419 to list the Eastern Caribbean dollar, which, 00:08:51.419 --> 00:08:54.419 by the way, unifies eight different island economies 00:08:54.419 --> 00:08:57.620 right alongside the Singapore dollar, which represents 00:08:57.620 --> 00:08:59.899 one of the busiest maritime trade hubs on the 00:08:59.899 --> 00:09:02.740 planet. So colonialism and global trade export 00:09:02.740 --> 00:09:05.259 the word dollar. But what happens when the physical 00:09:05.259 --> 00:09:07.720 symbol outruns the word entirely? Oh, this is 00:09:07.720 --> 00:09:09.710 where the typography gets really fun. Because 00:09:09.710 --> 00:09:11.889 the source takes us into currencies that don't 00:09:11.889 --> 00:09:13.929 have the word dollar anywhere in their name but 00:09:13.929 --> 00:09:16.570 still claim the symbol. We transition from the 00:09:16.570 --> 00:09:18.570 linguistic route to the typographical route. 00:09:18.690 --> 00:09:21.470 We're talking about the peso block. Yes. The 00:09:21.470 --> 00:09:24.110 list includes the Argentine peso, Chilean peso, 00:09:24.409 --> 00:09:27.990 Colombian peso, Cuban peso, Dominican peso, Mexican 00:09:27.990 --> 00:09:30.850 peso, and the Uruguayan peso. That's a lot of 00:09:30.850 --> 00:09:33.250 pesos. And right after that, the Brazilian real. 00:09:34.130 --> 00:09:36.730 Visually, mathematically, they all claim that 00:09:36.730 --> 00:09:40.210 same S with a vertical line through it. Why are 00:09:40.210 --> 00:09:42.889 the pesos crashing the dollar's disambiguation 00:09:42.889 --> 00:09:45.230 page? This raises an important question about 00:09:45.230 --> 00:09:47.710 the origin of the symbol itself. We discuss how 00:09:47.710 --> 00:09:49.929 the US dollar was modeled on the Spanish peso. 00:09:50.389 --> 00:09:52.889 Right? The piece of eight. Well, the symbol actually 00:09:52.889 --> 00:09:55.210 predates the United States. In the late 18th 00:09:55.210 --> 00:09:57.610 century, merchants handling Spanish -American 00:09:57.610 --> 00:10:00.070 trade would abbreviate pesos with the letters 00:10:00.070 --> 00:10:03.690 P and S. Just writing out P -S. Exactly. Over 00:10:03.690 --> 00:10:07.129 time, those writing hastily by hand started overlapping 00:10:07.129 --> 00:10:10.129 the P and the S, which gradually simplified into 00:10:10.129 --> 00:10:12.730 an S with a vertical line through it. Oh, wow. 00:10:12.870 --> 00:10:14.730 I always thought it was an S and a U for United 00:10:14.730 --> 00:10:18.220 States. That's a super common myth. Another prominent 00:10:18.220 --> 00:10:20.500 theory actually points to the Spanish coat of 00:10:20.500 --> 00:10:23.419 arms, which features the pillars of Hercules 00:10:23.419 --> 00:10:26.620 wrapped in a ribbon in an S shape, which was 00:10:26.620 --> 00:10:28.879 stamped right on those silver coins. So the symbol 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:31.259 actually belongs to the peso first. The dollar 00:10:31.259 --> 00:10:33.940 just inherited it. Historically speaking, yes. 00:10:34.519 --> 00:10:36.700 The symbol detaches completely from the English 00:10:36.700 --> 00:10:39.059 word, and it's not just the major South American 00:10:39.059 --> 00:10:40.659 and Caribbean currencies that use it either. 00:10:40.789 --> 00:10:42.909 Right, the source specifically points out some 00:10:42.909 --> 00:10:45.750 incredibly unique island currencies. You have 00:10:45.750 --> 00:10:49.129 the Samoan Tala, you have the Cape Verdean Escudo, 00:10:49.409 --> 00:10:52.909 and you have the Tungan Palanga. Such distinct 00:10:52.909 --> 00:10:56.149 localized economies. The Samoan Tala, the Cape 00:10:56.149 --> 00:10:58.649 Verdean Escudo, and the Tungan Palanga, just 00:10:58.649 --> 00:11:01.490 beautiful names. But again, they fall under this 00:11:01.490 --> 00:11:03.610 typographic umbrella. We have to look at the 00:11:03.610 --> 00:11:05.409 metadata of the source material to understand 00:11:05.409 --> 00:11:08.210 why this matters for the database. The text notes 00:11:08.210 --> 00:11:12.210 that this specific disambig... was last edited 00:11:12.210 --> 00:11:15.789 on September 22nd, 2024. Okay, so what does this 00:11:15.789 --> 00:11:18.149 all mean? Why does that specific date of September 00:11:18.149 --> 00:11:22.070 2024 matter to you? It reminds us that Wikipedia 00:11:22.070 --> 00:11:26.149 is a living, breathing mechanism. It is edited 00:11:26.149 --> 00:11:29.009 by human contributors globally, and it has to 00:11:29.009 --> 00:11:32.129 account for real -world... user search behavior 00:11:32.129 --> 00:11:34.730 in real time. Right. It's not just a static book 00:11:34.730 --> 00:11:38.129 on a shelf. Exactly. A disambiguation page is 00:11:38.129 --> 00:11:40.490 not a dictionary that dictates meaning from the 00:11:40.490 --> 00:11:43.750 top down. It is a traffic cop responding to bottom 00:11:43.750 --> 00:11:45.850 up behavior. Oh, that makes perfect sense. If 00:11:45.850 --> 00:11:48.769 a user sitting in a cafe in Opia, the capital 00:11:48.769 --> 00:11:51.730 of Samoa, opens their browser and types $100 00:11:51.730 --> 00:11:55.190 into the search bar, there is a very high probability 00:11:55.190 --> 00:11:57.250 they aren't looking for the face of Benjamin 00:11:57.250 --> 00:11:59.269 Franklin. They might be looking for information 00:11:59.269 --> 00:12:02.210 on the design or exchange rate of a 100 tala 00:12:02.210 --> 00:12:05.049 note. Precisely. The encyclopedia literally cannot 00:12:05.049 --> 00:12:07.210 assume the cultural context of the person at 00:12:07.210 --> 00:12:09.590 the keyboard. It has to serve as a mirror to 00:12:09.590 --> 00:12:11.750 the entire globe all at once. It has to be everything 00:12:11.750 --> 00:12:14.330 to everyone. It says, we see you type this visual 00:12:14.330 --> 00:12:16.669 shape. Here are the 30 different things you might 00:12:16.669 --> 00:12:18.649 mean, depending on whether you are standing in 00:12:18.649 --> 00:12:22.649 Cape Verde, Tonga, Uruguay, or Belize. It's shape 00:12:22.649 --> 00:12:25.269 shifting. It really is. It's shape shifting across 00:12:25.269 --> 00:12:28.169 South America, Africa, and the Pacific Islands. 00:12:28.610 --> 00:12:31.750 A single keystroke contains immense geographical 00:12:31.750 --> 00:12:34.330 diversity. And, you know, up until this point, 00:12:34.970 --> 00:12:37.409 our entire discussion has been completely grounded 00:12:37.409 --> 00:12:40.610 in macroeconomic realities. Very serious money 00:12:40.610 --> 00:12:43.669 talk. Yeah. We are talking about sovereign wealth, 00:12:44.309 --> 00:12:47.149 global trade routes, colonial silver mines, and 00:12:47.149 --> 00:12:50.559 hyperinflation. Everything on the list represents 00:12:50.559 --> 00:12:53.539 a tangible unit of human labor and value exchange. 00:12:54.039 --> 00:12:56.519 But here's where it gets really interesting. 00:12:56.620 --> 00:12:58.200 Oh I know where you're going with this. Because 00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:01.220 the very nature of a database triage center requires 00:13:01.220 --> 00:13:04.059 listing absolutely all notable uses of a term, 00:13:04.559 --> 00:13:07.019 which leads us to the most abrupt, hilarious 00:13:07.019 --> 00:13:09.799 pivot in the entire source text. It's so good. 00:13:09.919 --> 00:13:12.559 We leave global finance behind entirely. We just 00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:14.360 walk right out of the bank. Welcome to the other 00:13:14.360 --> 00:13:16.379 meanings section. The other meanings section. 00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:19.240 We drop down from the monumental economic weight 00:13:19.240 --> 00:13:21.639 of the Brazilian real and the Mexican peso, and 00:13:21.639 --> 00:13:25.360 we hit a single lonely bullet point. I'm going 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:28.669 to read it exactly as it appears. quote, $100, 00:13:29.330 --> 00:13:32.889 a Canadian alternative folk country band, end 00:13:32.889 --> 00:13:35.330 quote. It perfectly illustrates the absurdity 00:13:35.330 --> 00:13:38.090 and the beauty of data systems. I mean, go back 00:13:38.090 --> 00:13:40.570 to our alien trying to understand Earth. They 00:13:40.570 --> 00:13:44.409 read this page and conclude, ah, yes. The $100 00:13:44.409 --> 00:13:48.250 is a globally traded unit of value used to facilitate 00:13:48.250 --> 00:13:51.269 human commerce from Singapore to the Cayman Islands. 00:13:51.370 --> 00:13:53.409 It is also a group of people playing guitars 00:13:53.409 --> 00:13:56.629 in a Toronto bar. Exactly. It's amazing. If we 00:13:56.629 --> 00:13:59.230 connect this to the bigger picture, it fundamentally 00:13:59.230 --> 00:14:02.389 changes how we view information hierarchy in 00:14:02.389 --> 00:14:05.549 the digital age. I mean, well, a database doesn't 00:14:05.549 --> 00:14:08.549 know what value is. It doesn't understand the 00:14:08.549 --> 00:14:10.470 concept of a nation state. It only understands 00:14:10.470 --> 00:14:13.110 string matching. It just sees characters. Right. 00:14:13.289 --> 00:14:15.230 We talked about how the page flattens economic 00:14:15.230 --> 00:14:17.490 realities between the U .S. dollar and the Zimbabwean 00:14:17.490 --> 00:14:20.129 note. But this goes even further. It jumps categories 00:14:20.129 --> 00:14:23.840 completely on this page. the entire historical 00:14:23.840 --> 00:14:27.159 legacy of the United States, the complex maritime 00:14:27.159 --> 00:14:30.120 trade of Singapore, and the silver mines of Bohemia. 00:14:30.379 --> 00:14:34.120 They are all given the exact same pixel space 00:14:34.120 --> 00:14:37.419 as a Canadian alternative folk country band. 00:14:37.740 --> 00:14:40.240 There is no font size difference. The new Taiwan 00:14:40.240 --> 00:14:43.059 dollar doesn't get a bigger, bolder header than 00:14:43.059 --> 00:14:45.740 the folk band. The database doesn't care that 00:14:45.740 --> 00:14:48.620 one moves billions in global GDP and the other, 00:14:48.620 --> 00:14:50.919 you know, sells vinyl records and t -shirts. 00:14:51.039 --> 00:14:54.059 It's a pure democracy of data. The band chose 00:14:54.059 --> 00:14:56.659 to name themselves after the currency. Maybe 00:14:56.659 --> 00:14:58.480 it was a commentary on capitalism, or maybe it 00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:00.000 just sounded like a great name for a country 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:02.340 band. Probably a bit of both. But by doing so, 00:15:02.460 --> 00:15:04.840 they engineered a linguistic collision. They 00:15:04.840 --> 00:15:07.500 hijacked the metadata string. They forced the 00:15:07.500 --> 00:15:09.740 encyclopedic algorithms to place them side by 00:15:09.740 --> 00:15:11.860 side with sovereign nations. It is a massive 00:15:11.860 --> 00:15:13.980 testament to how humans name things after what 00:15:13.980 --> 00:15:16.279 they value. This symbol has so much cultural 00:15:16.279 --> 00:15:18.620 weight that it bleeds out of the realm of pure 00:15:18.620 --> 00:15:21.580 economics, escapes the banks, and just enters 00:15:21.580 --> 00:15:23.639 into human art. And the encyclopedia just has 00:15:23.639 --> 00:15:26.320 to shrug and say, yep. put it on the list. Someone 00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:28.600 typing this string might be looking for Canadian 00:15:28.600 --> 00:15:31.820 folk music, not the Namibian dollar. It really 00:15:31.820 --> 00:15:33.899 proves that a symbol is never just a symbol. 00:15:34.279 --> 00:15:36.980 It is a hollow container, and the meaning it 00:15:36.980 --> 00:15:39.659 holds changes entirely depending on the geography, 00:15:39.899 --> 00:15:42.059 the history, and the intentions of the person 00:15:42.059 --> 00:15:44.620 interacting with it. We started this deep dive 00:15:44.620 --> 00:15:47.779 thinking about a single crisp piece of paper 00:15:47.779 --> 00:15:51.450 in a wallet. But a simple search for $100 took 00:15:51.450 --> 00:15:54.230 us on a huge journey. It really did. We tracked 00:15:54.230 --> 00:15:56.950 the bohemian silver thaler evolving into the 00:15:56.950 --> 00:15:59.789 US dollar. We followed the Spanish piece of eight, 00:15:59.789 --> 00:16:02.090 transforming into the visual symbol for the pesos 00:16:02.090 --> 00:16:05.250 of Uruguay and the talas of Samoa. We looked 00:16:05.250 --> 00:16:07.529 at the grim mechanics of hyperinflation. And 00:16:07.529 --> 00:16:10.509 we ended up on a Canadian folk stage, all because 00:16:10.509 --> 00:16:12.929 of how a digital database sorts human language. 00:16:13.070 --> 00:16:15.210 We always want our symbols to be direct, to point 00:16:15.210 --> 00:16:18.500 to exactly one thing without any confusion. but 00:16:18.500 --> 00:16:22.000 true clarity actually requires context. Definitely. 00:16:22.299 --> 00:16:23.820 And there is a final thought I want to leave 00:16:23.820 --> 00:16:26.320 you with for you listening at home, stepping 00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:28.360 away from the physical paper and metal we've 00:16:28.360 --> 00:16:30.460 discussed today. Okay, let's hear it. What happens 00:16:30.460 --> 00:16:32.860 to this typographical umbrella when we go fully 00:16:32.860 --> 00:16:35.720 digital? Does a decentralized cryptocurrency 00:16:35.720 --> 00:16:38.960 like Bitcoin, which operates completely outside 00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:41.879 of sovereign borders, finally unify the globe 00:16:41.879 --> 00:16:44.460 under a single new symbol? Oh, that's an interesting 00:16:44.460 --> 00:16:47.299 point. Or, as human nature and naming collisions 00:16:47.299 --> 00:16:50.240 inevitably take over, are we just slowly building 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:53.480 the next massive Wikipedia disambiguation page? 00:16:54.299 --> 00:16:56.779 What else in your everyday life shares a name 00:16:56.779 --> 00:16:59.690 with 40 completely different realities across 00:16:59.690 --> 00:17:02.009 the globe. That completely flips the script on 00:17:02.009 --> 00:17:03.730 the future of money and makes you look at the 00:17:03.730 --> 00:17:05.650 digital world and the symbols we take for granted 00:17:05.650 --> 00:17:08.049 every single day entirely differently. Thank 00:17:08.049 --> 00:17:09.630 you so much for joining us on this deep dive. 00:17:09.730 --> 00:17:10.390 We'll catch you next time.