alt Hacker NewsFiat currency isn't just a matter of belief or stories. If you interact with the US financial system in any significant way then you're likely to end up owing some income taxes, and those can only be paid in US dollars. If you don't pay then eventually law enforcement officers will seize your assets (real estate, cattle, gold, cryptocurrency, whatever) by force and auction them off to settle your tax debt. And if you try to stop them then they'll shoot you. Overall this is a good and stable system. The cryptocurrency clowns never seem to address the sovereign taxation issue.
Replies
They shoot you because they themselves believe in it. The violence is downstream from the belief.
So what you're saying is that you can pay your taxes in dollars, real estate, cattle, gold, cryptocurrency or whatever.
> Fiat currency isn't just a matter of belief or stories
... Then how do we, as a society, determine how much a dollar is worth?! We do use force to enforce the stories we tell about fiat. But 'believe this story about how much a dollar will buy you and how much you owe, or else we will send thugs to your house' isn't disproving the point at all.
While that is true, the overarching point is that it fundamentally still is, just a story. You're just describing real world consequences, precisely because humans/societies believe in that story and enforce it.