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Tim Tyler's avatar

p(aliens) is one factor. Significance is another. Significance in this case is large - thus some of the interest. p(aliens) needs to be very small to make aliens worth ignoring. Scientific consensus is that p(aliens) is indeed very small, but overconfidence is a common bias, so not everyone will be convinced.

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Andrew Luscombe's avatar

Banks only real special feature is their credibility. Anyone can issue promisory notes, and if the person or organisation is credible enough and enough notes are issued, then those notes become a type of money. That's all paper money was for several hundred years. Now there is legislation regulating things, but money is still at heart the same thing. Yes it is created by bank lending, but in the absence of bans on lending in the form of transferable and convieniently denominated forms money will always spontaneously come into existence.

Governments can spend, and that might help things sometimes, but if they spend in the form of transferable and conveniently denominated debt, then from a money point of view they are just doing the same thing as a private organisation issuing promisory notes. Provided inflation stays within reasonable bounds, there's no monetary problem. If the government spends on useful things then fine.

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