Manifestation workshops. MLM downlines. The supplement grift. Cash is king everywhere in the conspirituality sphere, even—especially—when disguised in the jargon of spiritual-ese. Derek and Julian step back and discuss the cash grab impulse, as well as talk about their own feelings on money and its value.
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So I will go a little bit into history because I think it's important for context and it'll strengthen the broader argument I think we're both trying to make here.
In 1944 there was this collection of people who were involved in finance from around the world.
They met.
It's called the Bretton Woods Conference.
And they decided to peg the US dollar to gold.
So sometimes people still think the dollar is pegged to gold.
It's not, but that has persisted.
But there was a decision to peg the currency because before that, stores could make their own currency.
One of the first rewards programs was stamps that these stores would create these stamps that they then gave to people that was the currency of that.
So at some point, the U.S.
government stepping in to create a nationalized currency is relatively new.
And the dollar being pegged to gold, because gold and silver have been used for currency for a very long time, at least 2,000 years.
And along with a whole host of avocado pits and cacao and a whole host of other stones that were used.
Cowry shells was one of the oldest ones that were identified.
So in 1971, Nixon took the U.S.
dollar off of the gold standard because of inflation.
He wanted to quell inflation.
As we're experiencing now, it's a death knell to a president or to any administration.
And then his idea was to detach it from the gold standard, and then when inflation went down, to put it back on.
But in 1971 and 1973, there was a series of agreements that were made by OPEC countries to peg the dollar to oil.
So the US dollar became a petrodollar, a petro currency at that time.
And what that means is that most every country that looks at the cost of oil sees it in dollars and trades for their oil in US dollars.
So the strength of the dollar, first off, it's not pegged to anything except really a fossil fuel, if you think about it, which makes the hopes of any serious climate change legislation laughable, because that could actually harm the value of the dollar.
But it's mostly tied to belief.
And it's the belief that the US government will make good on its credit and continue to prosper and stay above water.
That's really what any currency relies on is a sense of belief.
Sure.
Now, that almost sounds a little metaphysical in terms of how, in terms of, but it's actually where religion and economics cross over in a lot of ways is because they both codify certain ideas and then use esoteric languages to confuse people.
But at that root, it's really just that sense of belief, but it also manifests in power because that's why the U.S.
spends so much on defense, for example, because the strength of the dollar has to remain where it is.
So that's a little more how money actually operates and moves throughout society.
And people who know how to use money are able to, A, put it in places that compound interest at rates that will That will benefit them in the long term.
They hold a lot of their wealth in assets.
In different assets is where their wealth is.
It's not in money.
So when you see people holding up big stacks of bills as if that means anything, it's actually pretty dumb.
That's a nouveau riche red flag that you don't actually know what you're doing with that money you just came into.
So really money is an intellectual pursuit.
I mean of course there's also, I'm not talking about people who just do illegal things and funnel money into illegal places.
That's a whole other aspect of wealth that really isn't part of the conversation I want to have.
I want to focus on how money actually moves through societies and it It requires a lot of planning and foresight and predictive models and obviously a little bit of luck in there, as is well known.
So I bring all that up for context because it actually takes quite a lot of cognitive power to think about where to put your money and how to use it and how to balance it against your use of credit.
So the idea that Thinking that money should just come into your life without actually having to do anything for it or move it in certain ways is what really gets to me about this idea of abundance and manifestation that we see that's so popular in these wellness spaces.
Yeah, it's interesting hearing you talk about that intersection of a kind of metaphysical Way of framing it, and then how currency is actually based on belief.
It also strikes me that the kind of belief it's based upon also has overlap with science, right?
Because it's about predicting.
It's about, based on the data that we have, what do we think our best predictions are about where things are going forward?
And if those predictions are all looking good based on the existing trends, then there's going to be a lot of faith, for example, in the dollar.
That's that's very different than a metaphysical point of view that says You will money will flow into your life to the extent that you have the right belief system or that you But you know that you are worthy of it somehow that you have the right attitude towards it and and there's oh, there's so much There's so much shame associated with that and so much
Just weird psychological mind-fucking that goes on around, you know, and at bottom it's denying the socio-economic realities that we live inside of, right?
That somehow being wealthy is a sign of virtue, or a sign that you're thinking the right thoughts.
Now, it might be a sign that you are thinking the correct thoughts about how finances work, And about economics and about how to build a business and have tax shelters and all the rest of it.
But that's usually not what's being meant.
And you're also not poor because you're lacking in spiritual virtue or you didn't do the right ritual under the full moon, right?
Well, I would say that the people who are presenting those workshops probably do, at least some of them, know how to use money.
But that's not what they're actually teaching people.
Yeah.
They're just creating appealing messages that make it sound easy when anyone who knows that wasn't brought up in generational wealth, anyone knows the amount of work and knowledge it takes to operate.
Money is also often pegged to happiness, which has been shown, it still is, even though it's been shown to be false.
So studies have shown that once you hit If you are making a level of money below $75,000 a year, and you get an increase in your pay up to $75,000, your levels of happiness noticeably increase.
Once you go above that threshold, there's no correlation between your income and happiness any longer.
It's also been shown that once you get more and more money, especially if you're unaccustomed to it, you start basing your life around that level of money and then it's the next level that means you have to get to.
So there was some research done with Law students who then became successful lawyers and they were studied when they were in law school and they were in debt, they didn't have money and they tracked their levels and means and what mattered to them.
And then they went back and interviewed them later when they became successful lawyers at the say $400,000 level and the things that mattered to them had completely changed.
They had become more materialistic, it became more about the neighborhood they lived in and the car, whereas before there was more of a sense of virtue around being a lawyer that was the driving factor in what they were doing.
Then it switched as people made more money.
And I wouldn't be surprised if in some of the influencers that we see doing these things, that same level of
