Making Money
The Ankh-Morpork Post Office is running like... well, not at all like a government office. The mail is delivered promptly; meetings start and end on time; five out of six letters relegated to the Blind Letter Office ultimately wend their way to the correct addresses. Postmaster General Moist von Lipwig, former arch-swindler and confidence man, has exceeded all expectations—including his own. So it's somewhat disconcerting when Lord Vetinari summons Moist to the palace and asks, "Tell me, Mr. Lipwig, would you like to make some real money?"Vetinari isn't talking about wages, of course. He's referring, rather, to the Royal Mint of Ankh-Morpork, a venerable institution that haas run for centuries on the hereditary employment of the Men of the Sheds and their loyal outworkers, who do make money in their spare time. Unfortunately, it costs more than a penny to make a penny, so the whole process seems somewhat counterintuitive.Next door, at the Royal Bank, the Glooper, an "analogy machine," has scientifically established that one never has quite as much money at the end of the week as one thinks one should, and the bank's chairman, one elderly Topsy (nee Turvy) Lavish, keeps two loaded crossbows at her desk. Oh, and the chief clerk is probably a vampire.But before Moist has time to fully consider Vetinari's question, fate answers it for him.
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What Hacker News says
- Terry Pratchett’s Making Money portrays it quite well, imho. It doesn’t hurt that it’s an entertaining read.
I was surprised to realise bank notes used to be tied to a bank, not a state.
- I was thinking of a different Pratchett joke: in Making Money, Moist is told to use the barber's knock: "shave and a haircut, no legs!"
I'm rereading the Moist series again, and it is so incredibly thick with humour and references. I mean, all of the books are, but that series really feels like him at the top of his game.
- Of all things, the thing that helped me understand this best was Terry Pratchett's novel Making Money. Without giving away the ending too hard: in the post-gold era, the value of a nation-state's currency has very little to do with numbers or tangibles and everything to do with the perceived power of the nation-state (although, of course, numbers and tangibles feed into that perception).
The US is a huge outlier and it's hard to predict how things like "The central bank running a deficit" end up impacting the psyche of the financial decision-makers of the world.
- I can’t speak to real life but if you want to read an enjoyable depiction of how society might react to novel currencies, check out Going Postal and Making Money by Terry Pratchett.
- > The tiny minority is Musk
As Terry Pratchett so wonderfully put it in Making Money (Discworld #36)[0], there is "a piece of ancient magic called [..] fifty-one percent of the shares".
As far as what happens at SpaceX goes, Musk isn't the minority. He's the (?? 78%) majority owner.
So, if you work at SpaceX and don't like him, I think the options boil down to: a) suck it up, or b) find somewhere else to work ...
... or maybe c) leave and start your own SpaceX? We all know competition is good. Of course in that case you'll really have Skin In The Game[1] - and coincidentally that's the Taleb book I've been reading this afternoon.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Money [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_in_the_Game_(book)
- Perhaps you should read Hogfather or Making Money by Terry Pratchett. In which the importance of the lies that society tells itself is touched upon.
"All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
MY POINT EXACTLY
-HogfatherFor a TL:DR of Making Money, there's
https://www.ft.com/content/1aebc9f8-70bb-11dc-98fc-0000779fd...
I'd still recommend the book though. There are so many things that are little more than flaky veneers taken for granted in adult human life that the fact anything works at all generally comes down to an intentioned group of people 'conspiring' to make it so, and no one ever bothers to ask about it, as it 'just werkz' and creates value. It's only a problem when too many externalities get ignored, in which case, everyone starts to notice.
Once you understand this, the beauty of the 'conspiracy theorist' meme coming out of an intelligence agency to get people to stop taking those who ask inconvenient questions starts to take on a stroke of genius. You get people who rock the boat discredited out the gate, and reinforce the status quo.
...Until that document gets declassified and blows up in your face anyway.
