OP here. A good point! I suppose we could say that modern paper currency was system B, built on top of bullion / system A ("dependency-free" as in gold exists i

OP here. A good point! I suppose we could say that modern paper currency was system B, built on top of bullion / system A ("dependency-free" as in gold exists in the Earth's crust independent of humans). And at some point currency was liberated from those earthly bindings, and became free-floating. So then question would be how to bring back free-floating currency, if we somehow shot ourselves back to the dark ages and forgot all about it. "Lots of luck" would be my best guess. (Because if we manage to go back there, we are likely to succeed at going back further and forgetting even more. These sorts of swings have multi-generational momentum I suppose.) > The author appears to have missed cyclic dependencies as a barrier to cold restarts. P.S. I am sure I have missed plenty in that stream-of-consciousness post (and mistaken a bunch too)!