Made Up Things Are Real

Photo by Jeremy Beck on Unsplash

Wasn’t sure what to write today as I am snowed in and miserable.

Then somebody informed me they don’t believe in race. It’s made up.

This is a profound and common misunderstanding of “Race is a social construct.” It’s true…there’s more genetic difference, typically, between two people from different parts of Africa than between either of them and a typical European. Yes, even with all that mating with neanderthals.

The misunderstanding is that that makes race not real. Here’s the question I posed to that commenter: Is money real?

The Reality of Money

Go find a banknote. I’m waiting. What is a $20? It’s a highly ornate piece of “paper.” Currency paper in the U.S. is 75% cotton and 25% linen. If you’ve ever accidentally washed a bill…that’s why it has a decent chance of surviving.

So, why is that worth $20?

It used to be that money was coins that had inherent value, but that went by the board a while ago.

In fact, most of our money exists solely as a set of numbers in a computer system. If we all tried to withdraw it at once the country would run out of cash.

Money…isn’t real. It’s a consensus. It has precisely the value we agree it has, and if the system breaks down and money becomes…