If you have every seen the movie "In Time," then you'll understand immediately what I mean when I talk about time being a form of currency. If you aren't familiar with the movie, well, this will contain spoilers. If you have seen the movie, you know that there are plenty of pros and cons to having time as a form of currency. I was recently asked the question, "what would be some positives and negatives if time was our currency?" I think it's a good question worthy of discussion.
First, we’ll look at the positives. One pro would be that we would not only have gone paperless with our currency, but also cardless as well. Your wallet would be right there on your wrist. It will make your pocket or purse a lot lighter because of that! Plus I love the idea of not constantly having loose change on me. It would also be easier to exchange money as well, since you can either swap time using your forearms, or just place your wrist underneath a little scanner to make payments.
However, there are a lot of cons to having time as our currency, a lot more than pros. First, there would be a lot more crime since everyone will be trying to get more time. It would be a constant cycle of watching over your shoulder and being paranoid. With real money if you don’t have any, you’re poor and living on the side of the street, but you’re still living. With time as our currency, if you don’t have any, you die. It would be harder for even the middle class to stay alive. They would need a solid paying job, which are hard to come by. The rich would be the only people able to live comfortably. The only real con for the rich is that they could potentially live forever, if not a very long time. They would likely end up feeling how Hamilton felt in the movie and essentially kill themselves.
There’s also one thing that is either a pro or a con, depending on personal preference. You would stop physically aging at 25. If you’re attractive and like how you look, that’s great, but if you don’t then you’re stuck like that. However, it does make it difficult to tell how old someone actually is. For example, Philippe Weis’ daughter, mother and wife all look the exact same age in the movie, and even look similar in general.
