the single most important thing to understand about economics is that it's all semi-imaginary. That is, economies only exist because we all agree to let them exsist

FTR, I'm not sure how this follows. Government exists because we agree to being governed. I exist because probably no one has agreed to kill me. Contracts exist, etc., etc. I mean, there is an imaginable universe where nothing has value, but that doesn't make this one any less real.

that doesn't make this one any less real.

Firstly, I'm agreeing to kill the person doing all the banging that's disturbing me right now.

But it's the semantics I'm wondering about. Every inhabitant of the planet can simultaneously stop believing in gravity, and it won't affect the pull between masses. But if we stop believing in money in significant proportions, stuff happens. If many of us lose faith, a stock market can crash. Government's a little harder--it'll take more nonbelievers (which is why I credit money as more delicate).

I don't know if imaginary is the word, but there is one, isn't there? At the very least implying the "since we agree" nature of the whole thing?

Oh, please let this be true

Britain's Daily Star newspaper reports that the wife of football star David Beckham has apparently been lined up to play the alien bride in The Thetan - based on the religion, which believes in alien life forms.

The 32-year-old - who made her first attempt at acting in the 1997 Spice Girls movie Spice World - will play the bride of an alien leader called a thetan, which Scientologists claim is an immortal spiritual being, present in all humans.

Cruise - who is bankrolling the project himself after it was rejected by all the major film studios - is said to have picked Victoria for the role after being impressed by her "comic genius".

I was going to say. Money's a biggie, and one that directly affects us all pretty much every day, but law is a biggie too. Lotta imaginary things going around that help keep our ordinary lives running by general agreement.

Anything oriented toward "the public good" relies on three generally-agreed abstractions: that there is such a thing; that it matters and should be striven for, and what it actually is.

Jessica, things I've read have been trying to debunk this rumor.

Scola made me laugh with those links. I felt like such a hypocrit saying cookies aren't for breakfast because I know damn good & well, I've had cookies for breakfast PLENTY of times.

I skipped Bush's speech for the dentist. Did I miss anything?

I'm listening to Missy Elliot's "We Run This" for the first time. I LOVE this song. I need the CD.

I'm assuming that semi-imaginary and existing because we agree are being connected here--causally? Or identically?

Not sure. Not sure of the definitions and differences between causally and identically here.

I mean, if we stop believing in currency [snip] in large enough numbers, it loses its power, right?

Most definitely. There's more than one example of economies collapsing because the people lost confidence and probably every economic collapse is related to a loss of confidence in the reality of the economy to one degree or another.

The Dutch tulip mania is a great case study of how economies are created from practically nothing.

I think as long as we're trading anything, we've got an economy. If I give you three chickens and you give me a bushel of wheat, chickens and wheat are being used as currency. They're not money, but they're not strictly foodstuffs either. It's worth my while to breed extra chickens because I can trade them for other things I need but would prefer not to produce -- they have value beyond providing eggs and cutlets for me and my family.

Not sure of the definitions and differences between causally and identically here

Causally means that one of the items is the cause of the other one (it is imaginary because...) and identically means both items are equivalent (it is imaginary, which is the same as...)

But it's the semantics I'm wondering about. Every inhabitant of the planet can simultaneously stop believing in gravity, and it won't affect the pull between masses. But if we stop believing in money in significant proportions, stuff happens. If many of us lose faith, a stock market can crash. Government's a little harder--it'll take more nonbelievers (which is why I credit money as more delicate).

I don't know if imaginary is the word, but there is one, isn't there? At the very least implying the "since we agree" nature of the whole thing?

I'm aware that the existence of a market is a little less concrete than the existence of the building that it is housed in, and we can't exactly believe one of them out of existence. But the fact that something depends on a social construct isn't any more mind-blowing to me than any shared belief. I'm not saying I've given this a ton of thought, but I don't think it's profound to say "if there was never a concept of god, there wouldn't be any religions" and thinking that made the Catholic Church any less real or its effect any less discoverable. Maybe this is a false analogy, and unfortunately it's the kind of thing Bob would have a good take on but he's on a plane, as usual when these things come up.