this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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Money is made up, but it's definitely real. Magic is made up and fake. If it actually exists and does something, it's real. You can bring something from non-existence and make it real. It has no intrinsic value.
A bit subjective depending on the circumstances though right? Say a man has a horse that you want. Well, today, there probably exists a monetary figure that the man would accept to sell you his horse, even if it's absurdly high. But let's say something cataclysmic happens and humanity is blown back to the dark ages. If there is no society available for the man to use the money, then it really doesn't matter how much you offer him because at that point money isn't real. You could offer to trade good or services, but not money. You might as well be offering leaves from the ground.
That's what the guy said. Money isn't "intrinsically" real - it doesn't have something in-and-of itself. It's extrinsically real - it represents something in the society we live in, a system of arbitrage and barterage that we use to represent an amount of work (Poorly, and with little benefit to a large number of people).
So no - if the extrinsic reality changes, then the barter or arbitrage currency will change - bottle caps, for instance, take over. But for a large society to function, a commonly accepted means of representing "value" has to be agreed upon. I can't just say, "Well, I've got the worth of x hours worth of time spent on projects to provide", instead I'll say "I've got x pounds to provide".
Originally, this was made more explicit, and it still exists on UK currency: "I promise to pay the bearer..." At that point, the notes had a (Bank-enfornced) intrinsic value. The words meant a promise to provide the currencies face-value in Gold. Now, we've done away with gold-backed currency, and the raw value is arbitrary, it has no intrinsic value but that set by extrinsic realities.
Money is an intersubjective reality, like nations, religions, and ghosts.
Two for three.
Definitely a fun philosophical and semantic thought experiment!