I will bet you.

Author: secularmerlin

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secularmerlin
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I bet you ten money that money is an abstract concept rather than a real thing with intrinsic value of its own.
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@secularmerlin
You are wrong if you understand what interest-rates are and the concept of financial-security but outside of those concepts, you're correct.

I would suggest staying away from the field of accounting entirely because there are actual things like self-control, optimal investment etc (including actual betting unlike this joke-thread) that make money itself matter.

Money represents nothing about a person other than the end result of choices they made held up against the chaos of life. Until you know a person's chaos and what they exchanged instead of money (being a good father and son to their elderly parents for instance, spending more time away from work to be with the family), you don't really know what money means but what's for sure is people who are constantly short of it are likely unreliable is all.
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@RationalMadman
I did not say that it wasn't a useful made up concept. If it did not facilitate human interaction it would be an occasional curiosity rather than an all pervasive fact of modern living. That doesn't change the fact that money itself is intrinsically worthless and only has the worth we ascribe to it. 

Also you owe me ten money.
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@secularmerlin
No, you are extremely incorrect. If there was no money and you demanded what I didn't supply, we'd be incapable of trading if I damanded what you supplied.
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@RationalMadman
I never said there was no money I said it was an abstract concept without intrinsic value of its own.

You can make your check payable to SecularMerlin in care of debateart.com.
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@secularmerlin
Stay unwise and poor for all I care.
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@RationalMadman
You still haven't demonstrated intrinsic value in currency rather than an ascribed value decided upon by society at large. The thing about currency is that you can't make a tool out of it or eat it or screw it and make little people. Paper currency could at least be burned for warmth but paper money is a relatively new thing and you would be much better off with coal or wood or even bones if you are trying to stay warm.

So yes ten money please.
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a real thing with intrinsic value of its own.

"Intrinsic value" - where do you see that, anywhere?  Isn't it always in the eye of the beholder?  Doesn't there have to be a mind to feel "good/bad/right/wrong" in the first place - or else there would be no valuation taking place?  The universe itself, does not care.
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@Porkloin
So either some things have intrinsic value in that we can use them to help us survive but I am right about money being without intrinsic value or nothing has value including money in which case I am correct that money has no value. 

Either way you owe me ten money.
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@secularmerlin
Agreed that money has no intrinsic value.  Nothing has "value," however, unless there is a mind or minds that attribute it.  There is physical reality, like some things being harder than others under certain conditions, and the fact that humans need protein and fat to survive, but that is not like the perceived value in money.

You mentioned things that help us to survive - that goes to desire, i.e. the wish to live, if it's present.  Saying something like, "Food is good," depends on what is desired, in the end.  The concept of "intrinsic value" seems to forget that there has to be 'somebody' there in the first place to feel good/bad/right/wrong etc.
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@Porkloin
Agreed. So your check is going to clear right?
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@secularmerlin
Money is like 'Fahrenheit' or 'Centigrade' - it is tool for providing an arbitrary scale for a something.  Fahrenheit and Centigrade are scales applicable to temperature - dollars and euros are applicable to 'value'.   

Two objects that are 37 degrees centrigrade have the same temperature, two objects each 37 dollars have the same 'value',
Of course the same would be true if we used fahrenheit and euros as the scales.

Value is not as easy define as temperature; however one can say things have equal value if their exchange is equitable.
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@keithprosser
But something "worth" 37 dollars today could be worth twenty tomorrow or even just at a different shop so money clearly isn't a measure of value like centigrade is a measure of temperature.

So yeah ten money please.
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@secularmerlin
That is why interest rates and banks matter to make your income fluctuate just as the market is so that when prices are going up so is your bank's interest rate and you have the equivalent of the 37 in the economy by having made enough upswing for the 'rainy day' periods where it's actually ending up being worth MORE than 37 due to a downswing in the overall economic landscape.

You will understand more as you study economics and investment but you clearly are proud of your ignorance.

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@secularmerlin
Money is a measure of value but it's as if the standards commitee continually refined 'centrigrade' by saying 'today the temperature of boiling water is 120 degrees'.

How much 'value' corresponds to how many dollars or pounds is determined by a complicated process - or set of processes that (I suggest) are not understood or fully controllled by anybody.

However, I am not disputing that money has no intrinsic value - that is fairly obvious, and made even more obvious by cases of hyper-inflation.  You can get a zimbabwean trillion dollar note for your collection for about a couple of US dollars.

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@keithprosser
That is not an example of money losing value. The severity of the mistake Zimbabwe made wrecked them so brutally in their infrastructure and proves how important money is.
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Looks like South Africa is substantially going to make the same mistakes Zimbabwe did...


--> @keithprosser:  Money is a measure of value but it's as if the standards commitee continually refined 'centrigrade' by saying 'today the temperature of boiling water is 120 degrees'.

Indeed.  Again, the difference between physical reality and valuation attributed by a sentient mind or minds.  
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What is money?

What has intrinsic value at all?

It was said that things that help us survive have intrinsic value. Isn't this a created. standard of value? Does that mean everything is valuable to Macgyver? How does money not help us survive.




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@RationalMadman
Even if they are useful artificial constructs they are still artificial constructs. Whether credit can be an indicator it still has an arbitrarily assigned value as does money.

Now stop trying to welsh you owe me ten money.
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@keithprosser
I am not disputing that money has no intrinsic value
Good you can make your check payable to SecularMerlin in care of dart.com

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@Mopac
What is money?

What has intrinsic value at all?

It was said that things that help us survive have intrinsic value. Isn't this a created. standard of value? Does that mean everything is valuable to Macgyver? How does money not help us survive.

So we agree that money is intrinsically worthless. You owe me ten money.
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@secularmerlin
I don't owe you anything you joke of a troll.
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@RationalMadman
You are clearly not amused. And here I thought you understood that thus thread was meant to be amusing. You even referred to it as a joke thread. 
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@secularmerlin
No wait a second, I want my monies. What is intrinsic value? I mean, doesn't something existing have intrinsic value? Its there, that counts for something right?


I say money is valuable.
I mean, clearly its worth stuff.



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@Mopac
Indeed what is intrinsic value? That term might be an oxy moron. Value is subjective. Nothing actually has value unless we ascribe value to it so value cannot be intrinsic. Way to ask a serious question in a silly thread. 🤡
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@secularmerlin
Well, I say even worthless things have value if they exist. The fact that they have been identified even gives them value. Money? You know what it is.


But money, even if an abstract value has existence and a real tangible effect on the world. It is a part of physics now. And maybe it is mysterious and invisible to aliens looking at the planet from space, but it is a variable that has real tangible effect on the world. It exists, and it even has great influence.


Money is even god?

"a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship"

The worship of money gives it value. What are banks? Big old temples to mammon, eh? The effect money has seems pretty supernatural, after all, nearly all of its influence is in the realm of belief in it, and most its effects are indirect. Like I mentioned earlier, if aliens were to watch people, money might be imperceptible to them. It is strange doins.


"a person or thing of supreme value"

To some people, its all about the benjammins. People live their whole lives centered around money. There are certainly people who value money as being what is really valuable in the world. 


"a powerful ruler"

There aren't many things in the world who have as much control and influence as money. Nations have destroyed eachother over money. Money runs people's lives.


Yeah, I'd say that money is a god, right up there with the other little "g" gods.





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@Mopac
That is actually very astute. Economics is a faith based system and like all faith based systems it tends to be capable of promoting harm and wellbeing equally.
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@secularmerlin
If you are going to play the karma game, there is no such thing as a purely "positive" action. There are "negative" and "positive" effects to every action we take. And so, true godliness is not a karma game. That goes as well for any "faith based system", or even little god that exists. For there to be life, something must die. For a new state in time to exist, the previous state in time must die.


Only by abiding in The Truth is this karma game conquered. If you lean on your own understanding, you are putting your faith in unreality. You are always wrong. Unreality is death. You see things as good and bad. Really though? It is what it is. Gain is not godliness. Godliness with contentment is great gain.


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@secularmerlin
I'd say 'value' was not 'well defined'.  Another related term used in economics is 'utility', which is meant to refer to the sllightly more objectve qualiy of 'usefulness' or what it can be used for.   That is to say we may not agree on the value of a thousand dollars, but we can/could buy exactly the same thousand dollar holiday with it so we necessarily agree on the 'utility' of a grand if not its 'value' - at least that is the theory.

IANAE.

Economics probably doesn't qualify as 'hard science' - but it's probably not as bad as sociology which is for humanities students but with graphs.

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@Mopac
What does karma have to do with anything? Other than being part of some faith based beliefs I'm not sure what brought this up.