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0 pointsRetric10mo ago0 comments

> I could go to the pub with friends and ask for a glass of something but ai don’t mind what

You’d very much mind you got a cup of bull sperm or diarrhea. That request is actually excluding the vast majority of possible liquids.

> if you feel the need to add a prefix

There’s only two types of money, fiat and barter.

If I’m exchanging a promissory note that I can exchange for 1 barrel of wheat or 1lb of gold or whatever that’s barter through an abstraction. If you’re using stamped gold coins people are just bartering precious metals of a known purity thus the need to weigh the coins not just count them.

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roenxi10mo ago

> You’d very much mind you got a cup of bull sperm or diarrhea.

Dear me. That got a good 5 minutes of chuckling out of me if you are aiming for humour. In the alternative I'm probably too far away to offer you a hug, but if you're having a bad day it might be a better bet to try going for a walk or some meditation rather than posting on HN.

> If I’m exchanging a promissory note that I can exchange for 1 barrel of wheat or 1lb of gold or whatever that’s barter through an abstraction.

The interesting implication of that is if you turn up at a foreign airport, change currency and buy a doughnut you couldn't be sure whether you're bartering or not until you've done some detailed analysis of the local legal system.

Either which way, if you want to call it barter through abstraction I can't stop you but we have a word for that - money. The reason most people use money is to abstract the bartering away whether they are in a fiat system or otherwise.

RetricOP10mo ago

I’m glad you got a chuckle out of that, it was intended to be humorous while also countering your argument.

> I’d you want to call or barter through abstraction I can’t stop you

I was calling it money, but it’s really a spectrum. Is a coupon for a free burger money? What about gift cards?

IMO, it’s money when it’s worth more than the underlying commodity. Stamped coins were a net benefit by being of known purity and promissory notes benefited by being easy to transport. So people mostly didn’t melt the coins down or exchange the notes because easy of trade is inherently valuable on its own. At the other end wasting time exchanging or melting it down is a net cost.

Which in a roundabout way means using money is never barter. Non fiat money has a separate floor on value, but the actual value is generally set the same way fiat money is.

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