How vs Actuality

[fantome profane]

You are free to think whatever you want.


If you really think so, then you haven't heard me signing yet!


"Value" is a term that is vastly more open than just simply whatever goods or services you can trade something for. I would also strongly argue that it is never "intrinsic" as you put it: If anything has value, it is because it is being valued, which is contingent on a person or group of people who value things.
No matter whether we're talking about moral, social, or economical value - something can only have value when there are people who value it.



I would argue that nothing is intrinsically anything at all.
Money is a social construction we use to denote economic debt and exchange value. In this socially constructed form, it can be manipulated in logically coherent and predictable ways, and is stable enough as an intersubjective phenomenon to become the basis of a huge portion of our everyday economic activity. It has a definite and observable social and socio-economic reality that reaches beyond individuals, groups, and singular institutions or organizations.

As an observable social phenomenon, it is arguably more real than most people.

Yes, it is contingent on a specific socio-economic configuration that is not going to exist forever, but the same could be said about literally any element of our society, including our own social identities.

Thought experiment.

Think of a song you partially like. Something that has meaning to you, or maybe you just really like the tune, whatever.

Now imagine that every other sentient being in the universe agrees that that song sucks, that it has no value.

Do you still like that song? Is it still a song?


Now do the same thought experiment with your favourite currency. If no one agrees that it has value, it is not money.


I think it is clear there is a difference between the two concepts.

 

[Kooky]

Thought experiment.

Think of a song you partially like. Something that has meaning to you, or maybe you just really like the tune, whatever.

Now imagine that every other sentient being in the universe agrees that that song sucks, that it has no value.

We're talking about my singing again, aren't we.

 

[Heyo]

I think money is real, a real tool and like all tools designed for a particular purpose. Those holding the tool use it to impose power on those without it

If you have a gold coin, it is real (as in physical, tangible), your bank account only exists as a construct, something people agree upon to exist.
We have come a long way from barter over precious metals, paper money and bank accounts to bitcoin. The finance sector has "developed" even more abstract "values" like derivatives that now only have potential, intangible value.
So, no, money is not real. It's power only rests in the illusion of people who think it's real.
(Much like religion.)

 

[Mister Emu]

In your opinion, what's the most compelling example of a problem that stems from the difference between how the world works and the way people think?

Critical thinking. Most people think they do it, most people do not.

I think it's interesting that we pay for things like Fresh Water (especially bottled), as well as the fact that we are the only species on Earth that pays rent/mortgage in order to live as a part of it.

This thought doesn't escape even the most cursory investigation. The lesser beasts do in fact pay for their necessities. Often they pay with their lives in their search for basic survival, much less the comfort we are afforded. I find money, as distasteful as it may be, a far superior alternative to bestial living and all that it entails, such as subordination to the most immediate and powerful violence.

 

[Mister Emu]

Now do the same thought experiment with your favourite currency. If no one agrees that it has value, it is not money.

If you value it and accept it as remuneration for services or goods, but no one else does, does it cease to be a currency?

 

[ChristineM]

If you have a gold coin

Yes, several, they are heavy, can be weighed, measured, observed (thought they are fairly inanimate) and exchanged for items of similar value, including money.

your bank account only exists as a construct

A construct with a physical/computerized record of transactions.

So, no, money is not real.

Try buying food at the market without it. Some may hoard it, it can be seen and measured though its value is variable. But it is as real as any other man made object. And trust me on this, dropping a bag of gold (or silver/copper/whatever metal) coins on your foot will tell you how real it is

 

[fantome profane]

Try buying food at the market without it

I do that all the time. I just tap piece of plastic on a screen and walk out. I get real food and the market gets an imaginary concept in return.

 

[ChristineM]

I do that all the time. I just tap piece of plastic on a screen and walk out. I get real food and the market gets an imaginary concert in return.

And your bank account (record of your money) reduces each time.

And actually (my bad) I mean street market that usually (not always) deals in cash only

 

[fantome profane]

If you value it and accept it as remuneration for services or goods, but no one else does, does it cease to be a currency?

Yes I think does. I can choose to give someone my car in exchange for a few leaves. But that doesn’t mean money grows on trees.

Imagine a restaurant that decides to give away food in exchange for blades of grass. That is wonderful. The can feed the hungry, but they won’t “make any money” doing that.


“Money” is not a game you can play by yourself.

 

[fantome profane]

And your bank account (record of your money) reduces each time.

And actually (my bad) I mean street market that usually (not always) deals in cash only

Sure there is a record, but it is a record of “nothing”. We are just pretending there is something there.

You don’t actually think the bank has your money in a big vault do you? They don’t. The bills and coins any bank has is a tiny fraction of the “money” that all the people have in their accounts. If you added up all the paper currency and all the coins that physically exist they would come no where even close to the amount of “money” we pretend there is in the world.

But either way, whether it is numbers on a screen, or numbers on a fancy piece of paper, it is not real. We have just agreed to pretend it is.


(And don’t get me started on “crypto currency”)

 

[Heyo]

And trust me on this, dropping a bag of gold (or silver/copper/whatever metal) coins on your foot will tell you how real it is

That is the difference between "coins" and "money". Drop your bank accounts contend on your foot and you know how unreal it is. Or transfer it around the world in a fraction of a second - it takes the same energy to do that as it would do with Jeff Bezos' money. That is only possible with non physical objects.

 

[ChristineM]

That is the difference between "coins" and "money". Drop your bank accounts contend on your foot and you know how unreal it is. Or transfer it around the world in a fraction of a second - it takes the same energy to do that as it would do with Jeff Bezos' money. That is only possible with non physical objects.

Bank accounts tend to be resident on huge file servers, drop one on your foot and you have a crushed foot.

The bank account is a record of physical money, they were paper and are now digital, using electrons and quantum particles (physical entities). And when those electrons and quantum particles have arrived at their destination you are able to withdraw physical cash.

 

[Heyo]

Bank accounts tend to be resident on huge file servers, drop one on your foot and you have a crushed foot.

The bank account is a record of physical money, they were paper and are now digital, using electrons and quantum particles (physical entities). And when those electrons and quantum particles have arrived at their destination you are able to withdraw physical cash.

You can't be that dumb. You are just trying to defend a minor error you made beyond the ridiculous.
The server isn't the account. The account isn't even the electrons. The electrons are just the representation of the account. And the physical representation of your account contains about the same number of electrons as mine or Jeff Bezos'.

 

[Kooky]

I do that all the time. I just tap piece of plastic on a screen and walk out. I get real food and the market gets an imaginary concept in return.

Plot twist: The "market" is also an imaginary concept.
In fact, all social constructions are, including the words we use to talk here.

“Money” is not a game you can play by yourself.

Like language, yes.

 

[Kooky]

You can't be that dumb. You are just trying to defend a minor error you made beyond the ridiculous.
The server isn't the account. The account isn't even the electrons. The electrons are just the representation of the account. And the physical representation of your account contains about the same number of electrons as mine or Jeff Bezos'.

Since you're talking about "representations", you surely must have figured out by now what they represent, didn't you?

So, no, money is not real. It's power only rests in the illusion of people who think it's real.
(Much like religion.)

Do you believe that debt is real, or is it an illusion when you owe somebody else?

 

[ChristineM]

You can't be that dumb. You are just trying to defend a minor error you made beyond the ridiculous.
The server isn't the account. The account isn't even the electrons. The electrons are just the representation of the account. And the physical representation of your account contains about the same number of electrons as mine or Jeff Bezos'.

The account is the electrons and quantum particles, surely you realise its not all done with magic?

The elections of memory chips, of hard drives on which your data is stored.

 

[fantome profane]

The account is the electrons and quantum particles, surely you realise its not all done with magic?

The elections of memory chips, of hard drives on which your data is stored.

A digital representation of a unicorn does not make unicorns real.

 

[Heyo]

Since you're talking about "representations", you surely must have figured out by now what they represent, didn't you?


Do you believe that debt is real, or is it an illusion when you owe somebody else?

Debt, like money, is a social construct. I'm not under the illusion that it is real.
(Iow, I will repay my debts because I accept the social construct.)

 

[Heyo]

The account is the electrons and quantum particles, surely you realise its not all done with magic?

The elections of memory chips, of hard drives on which your data is stored.

Does your money disappear from your bank account when the cleaning woman unplugs the server to use the socket for the vacuum cleaner?

 

[ChristineM]

A digital representation of a unicorn does not make unicorns real.

Correct, but it makes the information real