Coins - Currency or Decision-Maker?

Anne Chen Assignment 1

Research & Development 9/4/2013

Observation: On Thursday, a friend took me to a Williamsburg sports bar for drinks. On one of the televisions, a NFL game was playing – although I’m not a follower of football and spent the rest of the evening zoning out the game, I did witness the coin toss between the Eagles and the Jets. The decision for which team would go first being made by the simple flip of a coin triggered me to rethink coins themselves – specifically, how their uses have changed over time.

Media: video, “The Coin: Reevaluating Its Uses”, “Dimensions for Designers”, news articles Although I couldn’t find a video of this specific game’s coin toss, I planned to share this video with the class (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImaGgNkm7vc) to capture this phenomenon. Next, I wanted to communicate the historical trajectory of how coins have been used. Of course, coins first came to be as a means of exchange – human beings realized that the archaic bartering system had its limitations. On the other hand, money provided many advantages: ease of storage and production, liquidity, convenience and accessibility, universality, etc. But, as time progressed, money – specifically coins – developed other functions, functions shaped by both a coin’s physical and social affordances. A coin’s double-sided nature, its size and shape, its commonplaceness, etc. allowed for it to become ideal for making 50-50 decisions! These two dichotomous uses for a coin – as currency or a decision-maker – were what I wanted to focus on, but of course coins have accrued other uses as well (plenty of drinking games can attest to that).

My accompanying “Dimensions for Designers” text further explored these concepts, using terms we’d discussed in class. As I developed these ‘levels’, I began to reevaluate the idea of exchange as well and how technology’s role in exchange norm nuances. A barter system, a system of commodity money, a system of credit cards and debit cards… and now, the trend of using mobile phones to make payments – are we headed towards a ‘cashless society’ in the future? A relevant article (among many) I wanted to include in my presentation to the class: http://www.ibtimes.com/sweden-going-cashless-pros-conspaper-money-214321. Some others: http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/07/24/willcredit-cards-replace-lunch-money/; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/new-monopolyboard-credit_n_442461.html (this one was especially entertaining and showed just how social trends seep into unexpected places!); and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/banking/9937296/Cash-or-cardSoon-well-be-paying-by-handshake.html.

Dimensions: ● physical qualities of a coin ▫ means of exchange: recognizable, easy to mass produce, store of value, small size allows for easy carrying, etc. ▫ decision-maker: double-sided nature (heads or tails) provides for 50-50 decisions, commonplace (most people have a coin on hand, so it’s there if you need to make a decision), etc. ● social affordances ▫ means of exchange: before, coins and bills were ideal for transactions, but we’ve since moved from coins/bills to cards, mobile phones, and, in the future, as the Telegraph article suggests, maybe even handshakes… ▫ decision-maker: implicit understanding that a [large] coin is ideal for a coin toss

PERMUTATIONS (DRAFT)

What makes an artifact a “good” means of exchange?

S

L CONVENIENCE

ACCEPTANCE

*On one hand, order does matter: “AVAILABILITY” must come first - in order to use said artifact as a decision-maker, one must of course have the artifact present. If the artifact is not present, there’s no need to pursue further to the other two dimensions.

Once it’s been determined the artifact is available, the next step is to determine if the artifact is “RANDOM” - that is, one result is as equally possible to occur as the other, and results are independent of each other to justify fairness. Finally, the last step would be to determine if the artifact becomes the “ACCEPTED” means of decision-making (or dispute settlement) - that is, do all parties involved agree to use this artifact?

It is important to note that although the steps in this process are dependent on each other - i.e. the occurance of a coin being flipped depends on both parties agreeing to use a coin, which was dependent upon ascertaining the randomness (reliability to be fair) of said coin, which was firstly dependent upon if said coin was available or not - the dimensions themselves are not dependent on each other. For instance, the mere fact that an artifact is not available does not mean it is thus necessarily not random and/or will not be accepted by involved parties. Another example would be availability is not a prerequisite for guaranteed randomness; just because the artifact is available does not mean it is not a “rigged” coin. When considering each outcome, one must remember to differentiate between “Is it possible?” versus “Is it logical?”. For instance, it would not be a logical scenario for someone to agree to use an available but knowingly “rigged” coin to make a fair decision!

The possible outcome are explored in the diagram below.