Dating apps say they exist to help you find connection. Most people who use them for long enough start to feel the opposite of connected. This isn't a design flaw. It's closer to a design goal.
Money didn't replace simple trading. It solved something much more specific: the problem of trusting strangers. The part that came later — the idea that how much you have says something about who you are — that's the layer
People have died for it, killed for it, built entire cultures around it. Honor feels ancient and essential. Turns out its origins are surprisingly specific — and someone has always benefited from keeping it alive.
It's shallow, it's catty, it's what people do when they have nothing real to say. Except that for most of human history, knowing what everyone was up to was one of the most important survival skills you had.
You already know it's bad for you. The craving shows up anyway. That's not weakness. That's your brain running a program that's two million years old in a world that didn't exist when it was written.
That gut feeling that something is just wrong — it didn't evolve to judge right from wrong. It evolved to keep you away from things that could make you sick. Then it got pointed at people.
Long before it was a sacred promise, pair-bonding was a practical bet — on shared resources, on knowing the child was yours, and on better odds for survival.