Dear Swyers,
This is very well written and argued. I would like to see more science involved in the closing pages, though! It seems to me that there is an ever far removed trend to economic and scientific thought from what is around us everyday. Money might have once been a barter or lump of some outstanding mineral or element, but not is going digital. Science may have once been used primarily to study the human body, and then other movable bodies with Newton's mechanics. It has since seen relativity and the odd but well tested predictions of quantum theory. Very few can still or ever could view deep physics as an internalization, which I think is the peculiar genius of Feynman. Trying to wrap ones head around current economics is no small feat in the world today either. So as money gets more out there, will out thinking continue to in some other realm? One could go as far as to say that because of scientific insight paving the way (intentionally or no, most often) that this economic innovation with internet money has arrived. In this sense, the ideas floating around in money are a product of the scientific seeds once present in pure thought that developed into an influential technology. Even gold has to be mined and extracted and purified by scientific means. So in a very real sense, there is a part of the economy that science is responsible for, not directly, but the quality of scientific thinking will inevitably trickle down into society at large. That quality is the first responsibility of a scientist who also has a social intelligence, that he knows what he thinks, or how good his science is, may touch millions in ways he doesn't even realize. A well formed sense of awareness in the scientist is then quite important to economies that will be influenced by his every thought, action and emotion. To this extent, science and money are tied together.
Another comment before I sign off here. You pretty quickly dismissed alien activity, which is reasonable based on evidence. But if Bitcoin or whatever electronic property currency takes up, and say humans do make to a point in the future where interstellar commerce is an option, there might be a business partner left out. Most importantly, I think that you correctly identified mans way off adding value to external objects by a type of act of will, conscious or not, but to say that a new currency will increase happiness because this attribution happens more or takes to being fashionable is a stretch and interpretation of this value adding process that looks to the future. Happiness from valuing an object is an internal thing, the emotion is generated with the mind or being addressing this outside object of affection. It can be a rock or tree or pile of salt or gold or internet coins. My point is that happiness isn't really touched by money, but that money can certainly help fill in the necessary conditions in terms of basics and doing things in the world as it is.
