I can try some of these > Is a Fiat currency just 'vibes based economics' ? I'd think of it more like contract-based/trust-based. If a government has promised

I can try some of these > Is a Fiat currency just 'vibes based economics' ? I'd think of it more like contract-based/trust-based. If a government has promised you can pay your taxes and debts in a fiat currency, and you believe them, then you'll value that currency. You may need it some day. When the trust erodes, so does the value. I don't think this is simply "vibes", it's people behaving rationally about what they expect the future to hold. And in fact this is just what "value" means for all things generally. Someone thinking rationally about how to value a gold-backed currency is still asking themselves whether they expect gold to be worthwhile in the future. > How is it NOT a zero sum game ? A zero-sum game would be one where there's just a fixed amount of value to allocate however, and you're stuck to the pareto frontier; that is, there is no re-allocation which would leave someone better-off and nobody worse-off. But in reality there's obvious misallocation all of the time! That's why you would ever buy or sell something: because two parties both believe they benefit from that exchange. Whether that exchange is actually positive or negative for society depends on externalities. But it seems pretty clear to me that a lot of activity is a negative-sum game (if it cause pollution, addiction, etc), and a lot of activity is a positive-sum game (most other things), and almost nothing is actually zero-sum. How is it NOT NOT a zero sum game? > Is speculation on artificially limited assets (housing) just a pyramid scheme ? Kinda.