Here's a TED talk / write-up I viewed last year that actually made a lasting impression on me. Currently I'm using this as an anchor to my most (personally) important longpost. It may prove to be one of the most controversial writes that I've ever done. But hopefully interesting. I'll leave my own points in that article instead of cluttering this simple curation post.

Anyway, here's an excerpt of the TED talk that gave part of the inspiration:-

>*It is the same with economic networks of cooperation. Take a dollar bill, for example. It has no value in itself. You cannot eat it, drink it or wear it. But now come along some master storytellers like the Chair of the Federal Reserve and the President of the United States, and convince us to believe that this green piece of paper is worth five bananas. As long as millions of people believe this story, that green piece of paper really is worth five bananas. I can now go to the supermarket, hand a worthless piece of paper to a complete stranger whom I have never met before, and get real bananas in return. Try doing that with a chimpanzee.*
>
>*Indeed, money is probably the most successful fiction ever invented by humans. Not all people believe in God, or in human rights, or in the United States of America. But everybody believes in money, and everybody believes in the dollar bill. Even Osama bin Laden. He hated American religion, American politics and American culture — but he was quite fond of American dollars. He had no objection to that story.*

It's definitely worth a read and a bookmark. For more head on to - 
http://ideas.ted.com/why-humans-run-the-world/

I prefer watching, so here's the video - 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzj7Wg4DAbs

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