XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.books
From: droleary@4usenet2013.subsume.com
In article ,
Greg Goss wrote:
> Doc O'Leary wrote:
>
> >everyone
> >would probably be better off if cash transactions were rounded up/down
> >to the nearest 10 cents.
>
> Canada dumped the penny recently. The cents are there for credit or
> debit transactions, but cash is rounded to the nearest nickel.
Another funny bit about money is that, electronically (and somewhat
ironically), it is essentially "metric" (including into fractions of a
penny), but cash is still very much handled in an "imperial" fashion.
For change, we mainly break a dollar into 25, 10, 5, and 1. It makes
some sense to get rid of the 1 and 5 due to their current low value, but
then you have that 25 hanging around without any good divisor. Seems
like it would make most sense to either go 25 and 5 or 10 and 1. But
far be it from me to propose that reality will ever get even *that*
close to a "future shock" level of progress. :-)
As an aside, I always thought that a good way to get the US public into
using the metric system would be to market the hell out of metric being
a way to get *more*. 500 grams is *more* than a pound. 4 liters is
*more* than a gallon. 100kph is *more* than 60mph. Gluttony always
wins in America.
As a radical departure, why not a future society that has gone beyond
metric into digital/binary values? I think we've *already* advanced
well past the notion of counting everything with just our 10 fingers.
I've thought of doing this myself for corporate gift cards/certificates.
I mean, why *not* have a $128 bill that nicely splits into two $64
bills, that splits into four $32 bills, etc.? Retro chic: bringing back
pieces of eight!
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