Of course it's artificial. However, that doesn't mean it's arbitrary, or useless, or can be ignored at will given the current system of socio-economic organizat

Of course it's artificial. However, that doesn't mean it's arbitrary, or useless, or can be ignored at will given the current system of socio-economic organization. You're absolutely right that in the world we live in, policy makers have to be careful about financial decisions, or suffer the consequences. But I believe people should be reminded from time to time that our world is pretty far from the best possible one: There's no particularly good reason that a child has to die from undernutrition every couple of minutes, that fusion research stagnated due to lack of funding, that people go bankrupt to pay for healthcare, etc. As a species, we're just too stupid and greedy to do any better...