[Stephen Gerringer]

I find myself circling back to the topic of the thread – e.g., Patrick’s question, “What is money?” Clearly, there’s no objective, independent existence of something called money. Seems it’s a human concept – we invest value (pun intended) in the concept.

But difficult today, if not impossible, for a society to exist without it, given the complexities of economic life, though there have been times in my life when I have not needed much, and it’s never really been a driving force for me.

I’m also intrigued by the emergence of crypto-currencies (like bitcoin and the rest), which I find a touch baffling. (When I first heard the term “mining bitcoin,” I had an image of the Super Mario brothers with headlamps on their helmets being lowered into the bowels of my computer . . .).

There is a lot of mythologizing around money – might be an intriguing concept to explore . . .