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Debate Info

7
8
Yes Ask the cat down the road
Debate Score:15
Arguments:11
Total Votes:18
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 Yes (4)
 
 Ask the cat down the road (3)

Debate Creator

DeepDiver(15) pic



Is money real?

Yes

Side Score: 7
VS.

Ask the cat down the road

Side Score: 8
2 points

Sort of.

The question Is money real?" is very much like the question Is Mickey Mouse real?

It boils down to how you define real.

If you think Mickey Mouse is real, then money is real.

If you think Mickey Mouse is fake, then money is fake. This is fine, so long as there are people who think money is real, and who will accept it as payment for real stuff, like Mickey Mouse dolls, or DVDs of Mickey Mouse cartoons. ;)

Both money and Mickey Mouse simultaneously have abstract and physical forms.

Both originated as fictions based on purely mental experiences, yet virtually everyone has experienced both the abstract and physical manifestations of each of them.

Both have been reproduced, distributed, licensed, and determined to have value based on market forces.

Both are easily recognized, and when either is copied by someone who does not have a license to reproduce it, the only people who really care are those who hold the license, UNLESS the copy is an unconvincing one.

The power of both is the human capacity for suspension of disbelief, and the value of each depends on how pervasively people suspend disbelief.

Side: Yes
WinstonC(1225) Clarified
2 points

"Both originated as fictions based on purely mental experiences"

I agree with the point you're making but I disagree that money was a fiction to begin with. It was made of Gold or Silver (and before that bronze) which had inherent value because people have always loved these metals. They served as good mediums of exchange because unlike food and other resources they didn't rot but rather retained their value over time. Nowadays our money is entirely a fiction but it was not always so (even in the past century).

Side: Yes
marcusmoon(576) Clarified
2 points

Winston!

Good to hear from you.

True, coins started as being made of substances with some sort of intrinsic value, but the utility of gold and silver for coinage as a medium of exchange was based on scarcity, and moreover the governmental fiat behind it. Coins were officially minted to have defined sizes & weights, hence predictable value that was consistent from one silver coin to another silver coin (of the same type/denomination).

The users had to agree that gold was more valuable than silver, and that silver was more valuable than bronze, despite the fact that the only one of the three that was particularly useful at the time was bronze.

Consider, gold and silver, apart from use in jewelry (primarily due to softness and corresponding ability to be easily shaped) did not become intrinsically useful until the beginning of the electrical age in the mid 1800s due to their conductive properties.

Bronze, by contrast, was intrinsically useful because it was hard enough to make reliable tools and weapons out of it. This was what constituted the basis of the technological advancements of the Bronze Age.

The corresponding advancement of the iron age, and then the steel age did not result in the minting of iron and steel coins. If you had iron tools or weapons in a bronze age society, the resulting advantage was of incalculable value, yet these cultures maintained currency systems based on gold and silver, despite the higher real/intrinsic value of the iron.

Arguably, this was because, it would have been insane to squander iron or steel as currency, when it could contribute so much more to one's personal wealth or security as a sword or axe, or plowshare. Especially when and where iron (or later, steel) was new or rare, it would make more sense for a society to continue to designate gold and silver as more valuable as currency, simply because they were not particularly useful, but iron was.

This means that the values of the gold and silver, were in a way, based on mental fictions. They still are, except when used in electronics.

Remember, market price is not based on actual scarcity, but perceived scarcity, not on actual supply and demand, but on local supply and demand.

Side: Yes
1 point

Hello deep,

Money is a storehouse of wealth. It comes in paper, rocks, in increasingly in digits. What makes it money is that people will exchange stuff for it. They REALLY will, and that makes money real.

excon

Side: Yes
1 point

Hello, Excon.

What makes it money is that people will exchange stuff for it. They REALLY will, and that makes money real.

The Stock Exchange is like that. It is an exercise in consensus reality. The value of any particular stock is set ENTIRELY by what people think it is worth relative to what other people think it is worth.

Interesting that both currency and stocks, two primary players in the modern economic system, are both valuable ONLY because enough people think so.

Humans are a stupid animal.

Side: Yes
4 points

No. Send me all that bogus cash and I'll burn it for you. .............................................

Side: Ask the cat down the road
2 points

No. Send me all that bogus cash and I'll burn it for you.

I will help.

Side: Ask the cat down the road
2 points

A definition of Money said a generally accepted median of exchange, a measure of value. The Federal Reserve Note is only called money while it is a legally tested impartial registered receipt held pubic for the use of economic commerce. Money is both real and unreal it is not just one. Real money can be described as a Federal Reserve Note. Unreal money can be described as Counterfeit, or just plagiarized dollars.

Is Money Real? Yes

Is money only real? No.

Can you tell the difference? No. At this time a person can only test Federal Reserve Notes for Authenticity as they are all registered independent as receipt. The Dollar is an axiom to which value can be derived. It is describe best as an axiom being a list of number values chosen for many reasons and not only ease of use.

Can the real money make the plagiarized, counterfeit, and otherwise unreal money real? No.

Side: Ask the cat down the road
marcusmoon(576) Clarified
1 point

John,

At this time a person can only test Federal Reserve Notes for Authenticity as they are all registered independent as receipt.

If I understand you correctly, you referring to the value of the stamps, signatures, and serial numbers on Federal Reserve Notes as ways to support their perceived value by bolstering their perceived authenticity.

I had never considered how much the serial numbers "validate" paper money in the mind of the user. Even though I never check to see whether the serial number on a bill was ever actually printed, the fact that I could do so contributes to my trust.

It is like a badge on a cop. I have no idea what the official badge really looks like, but I assume that a guy in a uniform and a badge must have a "real" badge, and therefore be a real cop, and thus have real authority.

Side: Yes